Today for Tomorrow, a wide sustainability agenda
Today for Tomorrow is the Kömmerling mantra that underpins all business activities, decisions and strategies for the future explains Robert Thiroff, managing director of Profine UK and Kommerling.
When it comes to sustainability, we look at it on both a local, country specific basis and on our overall impact from a global perspective.
After all, Profine Group is a global powerhouse when it comes to PVC-U profiles and sheet production. Boasting a payroll of over 3,400 employees at 29 sites in 23 countries, the group directly serves over 100 countries worldwide producing over 450,000 tons of profiles.
Given the size and scale of business operations, there’s a strong appetite to make a positive impact when it comes to the wider environment and this stems from the vision of Dr Peter Mrosik, CEO and owner of Profine Group. As he states: ‘Our sustainability policy isn’t just about ecology, it also extends to the social and economic environments.’
While Today for Tomorrow is our new business mantra, we’ve been leading the way in material specifications for the last two decades and Kömmerling was the first major PVC-U systems house to remove lead as a stabiliser back in 2004 when we developed Greenline, which today remains our exclusive PVC-U compound that is blended in house. But what of the wider environment?
Much of the media has rightly been consumed with the state of our oceans in terms of plastics and the detrimental effect this has on sea life, and so the achievement of ‘Zero Pellet Loss’ certification in Germany as part of ‘Operation Clean Sweep’ has been an important environmental commitment. This initiative is part of the plastic industry’s global effort to keep these unwanted materials out of the ocean and the success of Kömmerling in Germany has inspired other parts of the Profine Group to adopt similar measures and processes.
Our reliance on petrochemicals has also been questioned and we are pioneering the development of a revolutionary organic based material in the form of bio-attributed PVC, which harnesses a pine oil compound that has eliminated the use of petrochemicals in PVC extrusion.
Alongside this we also have ReFrame, a window and door solution that is made from 100% recycled material and benefits from our pioneering proCoverTec surface technology to all the visible faces. It’s a product specification that has already been successful in several commercial projects in Europe.
To make ReFrame more commercially viable we’ve increased our recycling programmes in Europe and closer to home we are expanding our successful recycling facility with a second hub at our manufacturing facility in Huthwaite. We will be collecting more PVC-U waste than ever before after a successful 2023 and at the same time increasing the amount of recycled material in our main profiles. Closed loop manufacturing is a must for us as an ethical and diligent business.
As a huge consumer of energy, it’s been important for us to look at renewable sources and this has helped realise profine Energy GmbH, a joint initiative with Wirth Group to create an energy provider not only for the group but our customers and immediate communities.
The plan is to make the 29 locations of the Profine Group in 23 countries largely independent of current electricity price developments through our own 100% renewable generation processes.
And away from our business operations, Kömmerling Better World was launched on 1 January 2020 as a venture to support more localised and diverse charitable projects to help make the world a better place. Over €500,000 has been raised for the people of Ukraine along with nearly 250,000kg.
Today for Tomorrow represents our wider view of sustainability as it touches upon our desire to better protect the environment, our people and communities from across the globe, through investment and better and more ethical business practices.
