Optimize water use
Terms of the action or commitment
Objective: reduce water consumption in glass plants by 5% between 2020 and 2025.
The water policy aims to act on both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Redefined in 2018, it has aligned the action plans of all Verallia sites around common goals. Its main objectives are to:
– reduce consumption;
– avoid nuisance due to spills;
– comply with emission limits.
The water management system is based on the “Water Standard”, which contains 17 golden rules for the preservation of water resources. These rules describe the way in which sites must reduce their consumption, in particular by:
– Maintaining the condition of their network through accurate monitoring of monthly consumption, periodic research of leaks and connection problems and annual verification of equipment such as water plant networks;
– reducing losses and consumption by recovering rainwater from roofs and reducing losses in water cooling circuits, as well as optimizing production processes (the cooling of the blades that cut the molten glass to create the glass droplets destined to become bottles has been optimized to reduce water consumption by 80%);
– reuse, in particular of the deconcentration water from the cooling towers, which is used to cool the production off-cuts.
Water consumption at the Group’s sites has fallen significantly, from 0.63 m3/tpg in 2019 to 0.53 m3/tpg in 2021.
A major project to further reduce water consumption was launched worldwide in February 2022. Of the seven plants targeted in the first stage, those in Zaragoza (Spain), Porto Ferreira (Brazil) and Essen (Germany) are the most advanced in drawing up their action plans.
After a diagnosis and budgeting phase, renovation work will be undertaken in 2023, and other plants will then follow the same methodology until 2025.
The water policy aims to act on both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Redefined in 2018, it has aligned the action plans of all Verallia sites around common goals. Its main objectives are to:
– reduce consumption;
– avoid nuisance due to spills;
– comply with emission limits.
The water management system is based on the “Water Standard”, which contains 17 golden rules for the preservation of water resources. These rules describe the way in which sites must reduce their consumption, in particular by:
– Maintaining the condition of their network through accurate monitoring of monthly consumption, periodic research of leaks and connection problems and annual verification of equipment such as water plant networks;
– reducing losses and consumption by recovering rainwater from roofs and reducing losses in water cooling circuits, as well as optimizing production processes (the cooling of the blades that cut the molten glass to create the glass droplets destined to become bottles has been optimized to reduce water consumption by 80%);
– reuse, in particular of the deconcentration water from the cooling towers, which is used to cool the production off-cuts.
Water consumption at the Group’s sites has fallen significantly, from 0.63 m3/tpg in 2019 to 0.53 m3/tpg in 2021.
A major project to further reduce water consumption was launched worldwide in February 2022. Of the seven plants targeted in the first stage, those in Zaragoza (Spain), Porto Ferreira (Brazil) and Essen (Germany) are the most advanced in drawing up their action plans.
After a diagnosis and budgeting phase, renovation work will be undertaken in 2023, and other plants will then follow the same methodology until 2025.
Levers mobilized for circular economy (according to Ademe)
Implementation timeline
Starting year
2020
Ending year
2025
