Environmental Improvement Award Winner 2008

Bombardier Environmental Improvement

Despite increased activity levels, Bombardier Aerospace continue to take significant steps to make the operation of their organisation more energy-efficient, and the management of their waste more environmentally prudent. These measures are seen as key to the future competiveness of Bombardier and to this end they have developed an Energy and Waste Management Strategy that focuses on the management of energy and non-hazardous waste.

What they did

The first step that Bombardier took involved engaging employees, customers, suppliers, the community, and other stakeholders in their commitment to sustainable development.

To maximise its products’ environmental advantages, Bombardier build energy efficiency into the design phase and incorporate end-of-life considerations into product R&D. Bombardier also customises its management systems and operations to minimise their environmental impacts, setting challenging targets that help to continuously improve environmental performance.

The company has invested USD7.2m since 2005 in environmental and energy saving projects in areas such as compliance, impact reduction and efficiency initiatives.

All employees have undergone environmental awareness training and, where necessary, more specific environmental training relevant to their job requirements. Approximately 120 employees have been appointed as Energy Wardens and a further 3,000 employees are trained in energy conservation.

Bombardier has engaged in company-wide employee awareness schemes including an energy request system whereby departments working outside normal hours submit formal requests for heat, lighting and power. This means that energy is only supplied when and where it is required. Waste recycling stations have been provided on site, which are owned by employees. Assigning responsibility to employees for filling and emptying the stations and ensuring that contamination is avoided gave them a sense of ownership and pride in their work areas.

An Environmental Development Programme for suppliers to improve their environmental awareness and performance has also been initiated.

Impact

Total energy consumption has been reduced by 13 per cent from 2006 to 2007. This translates to energy costs savings of $2.6m
Carbon emissions have been cut by 61 per cent since 2005. During 2007 alone, CO2 emissions were reduced by 14,000 tonnes.
In 2007, Bombardier recycled or recovered 68 per cent of non-hazardous waste. This figure rose to 77 per cent for the months of January and February 2008.
The mass of waste sent to landfill in 2007 fell to an all time low of just 913 tonnes, this despite increasing production rates.
Projects aimed at improving environmental performance have been directly responsible for the creation of eight jobs with suppliers of recycling services on site.

Bombardier Aerospace - NI Environmental Improvement Award Winners 2008