Sun Chemical enhances sustainability monitoring

Sun Chemical’s 2013 Corporate Sustainability Report includes details of a variety of renewable and safety projects, including: the installation of solar panels in the Wavre, Belgium facility; 28 projects in the Muskegon, Michigan facility which helped to avoid 726 tons of CO2 emissions; the installation of a new distillation unit in Kankakee, Illinois, which increased the quantity of ink manufactured for each kilogram of cleaning solvent by 40 percent; the capture of steam to produce energy at the Maumee, Ohio site; and a fire training and evacuation exercise to identify improvement areas at the Marki, Poland facility.

In the report, Sun Chemical has also introduced a new internal web-based collecting system called EcoTrack. EcoTrack enables continuous monitoring, gives more transparency and improves data quality check capabilities of its seven key sustainability metrics: energy consumption/conservation at production and non-production sites, the energy carbon footprint at production sites, process waste reduction, water consumption, materials safety and employee safety.

EcoTrack will be a key tool moving forward in Sun Chemical’s roadmap objective to review target improvement opportunities. Sun Chemical has collected data for the key sustainability metrics since 2005 from approximately 170 Sun Chemical sites in over 25 countries, and this data has been uploaded into the system to keep continuity in data reporting.

Gary Andrzejewski, Sun Chemical’s corporate vice-president of environmental affairs, said: ‘At Sun Chemical, we’re challenging ourselves to look for ways we can improve our processes at individual sites by monitoring key metrics to understand and manage our environmental impact.

‘EcoTrack is one example of ways we are improving our processes in data collection. In 2013, there are many examples of how our own manufacturing facilities have been challenging themselves with regard to eco-efficiency. We’ve accomplished a lot in 2013 that we are proud of.’

‘Our sustainability policy pushes us as a company to improve the eco-efficiency of our processes and products,’ added Michel Vanhems, sustainability leader at Sun Chemical. ‘Product stewardship, especially but not only in sensitive packaging applications such as food, direct food and tobacco, remains a major tenet of our policy in action. With the development of green procurement, eco-labeling, complex regulatory changes, and brand owners and retailers embracing sustainability criteria in supply chain selection, Sun Chemical is determined to be the inks, coatings and pigments partner of choice for today and future challenges.’