SDG 13: Climate action
The United Nations aim to reduce the harmful impact of climate change as much as possible. They are asking everyone – governments, businesses and families – to take action to achieve this. As a sustainable supported employment company and SDG Champion we are taking action in different areas in order to achieve the biggest impact possible. We have listed the most important ones below.
CO2 reduction
We have joined forces with the consulting firm E-Luse to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum. Scope 1 and scope 2 are the easiest to achieve environmental gains. That is where we are currently taking our first real steps. Scope 3, however, is significantly more difficult. To reduce our carbon footprint there, we will have to take a close look at our suppliers of copper or steel, for example. 
Sustainable concrete
More and more people are moving away from concrete driveways, car parks, pavements, etc. And rightly so, because it benefits the soil and allows more rainwater to seep into the ground. Even though WAAK is located on a concrete-rich industrial estate, we are also trying to do everything in our power wherever possible. We are changing our roofs to green roofs, and a number of our car parks have been given a complete make-over. We have transformed them into green areas, where our personnel can enjoy their lunch on a nice sunny day.
Sustainable grounds maintenance
Our Grounds Maintenance Department specialises in sustainable grounds maintenance. They are specially trained in this field. We also apply this at WAAK. Our green areas are not cut short, but the grass can keep growing based on the no-mow-may principle throughout the whole year. In addition, we only use organic pesticides and electric-powered equipment instead of diesel-powered.
Saving water
Water is a very precious commodity, and with our increasingly hot summers this fact is becoming more and obvious year by year. At WAAK we have installed water harvesting reservoirs and 3 underground water storage tanks to harvest approx. 3.5 million litres of rainwater every year. When it rains, the rainwater is harvested from our roofs (equivalent to 75,000 m²). We use this water in our production processes. Industrial production companies in Flanders are some of the biggest consumers of water. We are no different, but we try to compensate for this by using as much rainwater as possible in our production.
Solar panels and saving energy
We have installed 3,883 solar panels on our roofs. These produce a total of 1,012 kilowatt peak (kWp) electricity per year. This energy is immediately used to power our production processes. We have also renovated our buildings and have installed insulation and sun screening. As a result, we no longer need to use active cooling, which has a highly environmental impact. The new buildings which we are erecting comply with the latest standards. For example, our site located at Vijverhoek has an E-rating of 34 (the energy consumption of a building). The standard for office buildings is E40. This means that our plant is NZEB or almost energy-neutral.
Electric bicycles and cycling bonus
Cycling is good for you and for the environment too. We encourage our workforce to cycle to work. In order to help them do this, they can participate, every year, in a cycle campaign which offers electric bicycles at a much-reduced cost. In addition, they also receive a cycling bonus (the statutory maximum amount) and they also receive gifts, such as items of high-visibility winter cycling gear, cycling equipment, etc. At WAAK we have also installed the necessary facilities for our cycling personnel, such as showers, locked cycle storage units, a cycle repair service, etc. All this combined helps to motivate our staff and to encourage others to also start cycling.
Waste recycling and re-use
As a sustainable company we sometimes have to take a close look at ourselves and examine our own production flows, because they can often be more sustainable. Sometimes it is the small things that can make a big difference, things that do not take too much effort, such as recovering electric cable drums, re-using pallets, picking elastics and plastic bags out of the mountain of waste, etc. Sometimes we also make major investments, such as re-using injection moulding residue to make our production processes more sustainable.
25% of turnover generated by the environmentally-friendly economy
As a supported employment company, we are heavily committed to the sustainable and circular economy. For example, we are active on various markets: heat pumps, e-mobility, EV charging stations, refurbishment, furniture, etc. Supporting environmentally-friendly products and markets benefits society and we want to contribute to that too. Our objective is that this share should account for at least 25% (it is currently 22%) of our turnover. Given that sustainability is high on the agenda of governments, businesses and the general public alike, we expect that we will succeed in this in the very near future and that we will be able to even exceed this target.
