Diversey achieves significant reductions in environmental KPIs

Diversey maintains a rigorous process to measure and track the environmental impact of our operations. Each year, our facilities around the world develop environmental improvement plans to align their environmental-impact reduction goals with other business goals, such as greenhouse gas emission reduction, efficiency improvement targets, and cost reductions. By aligning all of these individual goals, we achieved significant reductions in wastewater discharges, waste disposal, and energy usage in 2009.

The 17.1 percent reduction in energy was achieved by the multiple energy savings projects globally with activities including lighting replacements, modifications to compressed air systems, and changing operational practices.

The 16.1 percent reduction in waste disposed was driven by a combination of efforts to eliminate the waste from being generated through focused projects such as a central recycling office in Brazil and the increase in the amount of waste that is recycled through focused projects such as the third-party waste audits in the U.K.

The 6.5 percent reduction in effluent chemical oxygen demand was driven by performance improvements of the effluent treatment plants installed or upgraded in 2008 at our China, India, and Japan sites along with the following key operational improvements:

  • Modification of processing lines for 10 tanks and four filling lines and the installation of compressed air flushing units at our Turkey manufacturing site. By flushing the lines with compressed air prior to water cleaning, the site was able to increase their production yield, filling line efficiencies, and achieve an 83 percent reduction in effluent COD.
  • Additional equipment installation at our Spain manufacturing site to reduce the amount of equipment that required cleaning achieved a 37 percent reduction in effluent COD.

Increased flexibility required by our business has the effect of increasing the number of cleaning events required at a manufacturing location which in turn increases both total water and net water metrics. Therefore, sites have to continually look for ways to clean equipment more efficiently using less water per cleaning event to maintain or improve on previous years’ water metrics.

Making use of the same AquaCheckSM auditing methodology that our customers rely on to reduce water usage at their facilities, we implemented the same program at some of Diversey’s larger manufacturing facilities. In 2008, we completed an audit of our Sturtevant, Wis. facility and then, in 2009, we expanded the program to our Cotes Park, U.K. plant. Through the implementation of several water efficiency projects, these facilities were able to reduce their net water consumption by 18 and 13 percent, respectively, helping to offset the increase of cleaning events globally.

We continuously examine and improve the methods by which we evaluate our environmental impact. In the past several years, we have improved the precision of our reporting and analysis. Our 2009 results reflect the results of our efforts.

Key Performance Measures
Effluent COD is the chemical oxygen demand present in wastewater that is discharged from a site through a regulatory discharge authorization and the COD present in wastewater transported off-site to a third party for wastewater treatment and discharge.
Water Disposed
Waste Disposed is waste that is landfilled, incinerated or treated via another method that does not provide any beneficial reuse. We continue to use a three-step approach in reducing waste disposed:
  1. Eliminate the generation of the waste;
  2. Identify an alternative use of the waste;
  3. Identify means to have waste processed to provide a beneficial reuse.
If none of the three alternatives is available for a specific waste stream, based on local regulations or geographic constraints, then we have the waste disposed in accordance with local regulatory requirements.
Total Water

Total Water is the amount of water required to support both the production (water in product, washwater, cooling water) and the facility (e.g. restrooms, kitchens, sprinklers) at our manufacturing locations.

Net Water
Net Water is calculated by subtracting the water included in our products from the Total Water consumed at a manufacturing location. We use Net Water to provide an indication of our water-use efficiency at a location.
Total Energy
Total Energy is the combination of electricity, natural gas and any other fuels used to support both the facility and production at our manufacturing locations.

* Data includes 27 manufacturing locations in 21 countries.