At the edge of Laskowice in Poland, the familiar Swedish logotype appears on a factory building. In 2008 Stralfors acquired the facility, which employs 100 people in total. Since then, production and sales have doubled. 70 per cent of production here goes to the Polish market, the rest to Scandinavia. Stralfors in Poland has around 200 active customers, such as Inforsys, Gemalto, PZU, the Polish Post Office, many of the major banks and Xerox.
Post Nord's climate fund
But while production is expanding all the time, long-term environmental investments are also being made in the business thanks to Post Nord’s climate fund.
“The Climate Fund is a really good initiative, and we were delighted when our application was selected. We’re constantly striving to achieve a better environmental image and to save money at the same time. It would have been difficult to implement these environmental improvement measures without help from the fund,” says Managing Director Krzysztof Kolodziejski.
There are three investments in all that are
reducing the facility’s environmental impact:
- A switch to a transformer that rationalises energy consumption and cuts carbon dioxide emissions has already been completed.
- More energy-efficient fittings have replaced the old lamps.
- Recycling of heat from the printing presses, to heat the hall and the warehouse.
“Our calculations show that these measures will lead to a reduction in our carbon dioxide emissions of a total of 289 tonnes a year,” says Finance Controller Bartosz Zwolinski, who continues:
“In the past we used 30–40,000 litres of oil a year to heat the premises, so by using the heat from the printing presses we hope that we’ve now bought our last oil.”
Environmentally-friendly alternatives are also usually more cost-efficient. At least in the long term.
For a small facility like this, it can be difficult to make expensive investments that only generate a return after a few years, so Posten Norden’s climate fund provided a timely resource.
“The budget for 2010 didn’t have any scope for these investments. The intention was to implement them in due course, but this allowed us to go ahead with them earlier,” says Bartosz Zwolinski.
A good investment
Stralfors in Poland received around SEK 1.5 million from the fund for the investments, and as well as the environmental benefits, in due course the business will also be saving around SEK 2 million a year in energy costs.
As a general rule, Polish companies are not at the forefront when it comes to prioritising environmentally-friendly solutions, and the regulated electricity market is still dominated by coal power. But in every new decision that has to be made, Krzysztof Kolodziejski and his colleagues consider the environmental aspect and look at the options available.
“Our business is not an environment-friendly one, but we want to get involved in an environmentally-friendlier way of working and to show greater awareness of climate and the environment,” says Krzysztof Kolodziejski.
Certified with the Swan eco-label
Last year Stralfors became the second company of any kind in Poland to be certified with the Swan eco-label. This means that they satisfy specific requirements regarding the use of chemicals. This is the first time that the Swan eco-label has been awarded to a factory in Poland.
The plant also satisfies the requirements for ISO 14001, the international standard for environmental management systems. And more and more customers are demanding an environmentally-friendly profile.
“Many of our customers are impressed with our environmental work, the fact that we have ISO 14001 approval and have the Nordic Swan eco-label. It means that they expect us to be special. And we want to be special, we want to be unique and to break trends and find environmentally-friendly alternatives,” says Krzysztof Kolodziejski, continuing:
“But the improvements we’ve made thanks to the fund aren’t the last thing we’ll do. I think we can find lots of new ideas that are both environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient.”