2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
We regard protection of natural resources and carrying out our operations with minimum environmental impact as one of our fundamental responsibilities. We are carrying out projects to control and minimize indirect environmental impacts across our value chain as well as our direct environmental impact and we remain committed to constantly reducing our adverse environmental impact.
Environmental issues are being handled by the Sustainability Committee and the Sustainability Working Group in line with Tofaş Environment and Energy Policy and environmental performance is reported to the Board of Directors.
Reinforcing our management infrastructure regarding the environment plays a key role in the improvement of our environmental performance. We are speeding up our decision-making processes by also calculating the economic effects of our environmental risks, while allocating resources for the management of environmental risks as part of risk management. We are attaching great importance to raising awareness on environmental issues among our employees and those of our business partners.
At the root of our green purchasing policy is the philosophy to spread our sustainability culture to our entire supply chain and to bring products and services with a minimized environmental impact to the fore. Our green purchasing policy is aimed at minimizing environmental impact stemming from the production processes of our suppliers and their services, to improve their general environmental performance, and reducing environmental risks.
As part of our efforts, we provide suppliers from whom we purchase products for manufacturing vehicles a list containing environmental issues. Guided by a due diligence logic, the list informs our supplier on the consequences of their environmental impact (energy, water consumption), general information concerning environmental management system, questions on management of environmental risks. Their replies help us calculate our environmental impact arising from the production of components of a car.
Our Green Purchasing program, launched in 2018, continued this year with improvement and development efforts made with our 7 suppliers selected from different sectors. We formulated plans comprising our suggestions for long-, medium-, and long-term methodic and technical development with the purpose of their environmental and energy performance as a result of field visits paid to our suppliers selected as pilots with our technical experts responsible for the continuity and development of production processes of our plant.
A total of 103 actions are being monitored and 40% of them was completed by the end of 2019 and positive changes began to be observed in the environment and energy indicators of our pilot firms. While our program is under way with our 7 suppliers in line with our action plans, we intend to roll it out to our all direct material suppliers in the coming period.
As regards procurement of services, we are drawing up specifications laying down environmental sensitivities intrinsic to each service item and identifying preference criteria. Thus, services are purchased only from suppliers meeting the specified criteria.You can access detailed information on Environmental Management and Tofaş’s Environment and Energy Policy at tofas.com.tr/en/Sustainability/Policies or in the Tofaş Annual Report 2019 which is published interactively at ir.tofas.com.tr/2019/en/.
Being aware of the fact that the climate crisis will have profound effects on water resources, we are making endeavors for ensuring efficient use of water. We are managing our water and wastewater processes in the most efficient manner while trying to carry out operations with minimum consumption of water. We have made it our mission to continuously improve our water consumption through various methods while conducting periodic analyses in the name of ensuring the continuity and sustainability of water resources.
We make intensive use of well water in our production processes. Our water consumption fell from 1.073.626 m3 in 2018 to 929.882 in 2019. Our water consumption per vehicle dropped from 3.55 m3 in 2018 to 3.33 in 2019.
We make sure that fresh water extracted is reused many times in line with our principle of making responsible use of water resources. We return waste water resulting from the process to the production process again in order to meet our water demand.
We constantly monitor our biological effects in order to avoid any adverse effect on natural areas and creatures living there and conduct environmental impact assessments. We identify potential risks through periodic controls and take necessary actions. In that regard, we adhere to the Convention on Biological Diversity which has been ratified by Turkey.
Management of waste water is a key component of our water management policy in that it has the potential to create a negative effect on biodiversity. We are making endeavors to recycle waste water resulting from our operations in our modern treatment units at the maximum level and discharge remaining waste water to an appropriate receiving bodies in amounts below the thresholds defined in waste water discharge licenses.
We regard all kinds of waste disposal as a loss of natural loss in line with our Environment and Energy Policy and aim at preventing pollution at it its source. We ensure that all industrial waste created during production processes as raw material and source of energy in the cement industry and hence achieve our “zero waste disposal” goal.
As part of our management of materials and waste, we focus on the reduction of consumption of materials, broad utilization of recyclable materials, minimizing quantity of resulting waste, and its recycling as a whole. In addition to our own operations, we are encouraging our suppliers to reduce the quantity of materials they use.
The total quantity of waste per vehicle was 39.5 kg in 2019.
