Adopting a Total Product Life Cycle Approach for a Sustainable Future
06/02/2012
Discover how Hape International, world’s largest factory producing and trading high quality wooden toys in China has adopted a total life cycle approach to manufacturing as a solution for a sustainable future.
Hape international is the world’s largest factory producing and trading high quality wooden toys based in Ningbo, three hours drive from Shanghai. To ensure business growth over the coming decades, the company believes in adopting a total life cycle approach to manufacturing as a solution for a sustainable future. The company evaluates its toys through each stage of their life cycle, identifies inputs of materials and energy received; outputs of useful product and waste emissions and finds optimal points for increasing eco-efficiency. In a world of scarce natural resources, the company looks at sustainable raw material sourcing.
“Rather than just looking at the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill or an incinerator, a life-cycle approach identifies energy use, material inputs and waste generated from the time raw materials are obtained to the final disposal of the product” - Waste Management and Research Center, Champaign, Illinois.
Peter Handstein, CEO Hape international has decided to buy bamboo and cultivate bamboo forest as raw material for their exciting toys. Why bamboo? Bamboo is one of the faster growing plants serving as a sustainable raw material for eco-friendly toys. It grows to full height within 3 months. And can be harvested every four years. In addition, bamboo makes a perfect substitute to replace raw materials such as wood. Symbolizing strength and flexibility, bamboo performs an important contribution to the preservation of the environmental balance and to our ecological future.
Hape’s management believes ‘sustainability’ is no longer a nice to have concept -it now forms the foundation of a business - where environment is integrated into core business issues. The company’s motto to rethink, reduce, reuse and recycle helps in minimising waste and improving the bottom line.
LRQA’s Richard Gunawan vice president of business & sustainability development in Asia was shown around the toy manufacture’s factory where the management has introduced key processes to ensure that variety of by-products can be reused to minimise waste:
a. Hape has a unique paint recapture system which collects and recycles excess paints.
b. Painted wood splinters are reprocessed to generate geothermal energy that is used for various processes in the factory.
c. Clean wood splinters are used by local farmers to create mushrooms.
In order to have minimal impact on the environment, the company has already installed air and water purification system at its manufacturing sites. The water from various manufacturing process is recycled and reused within the factory.
While Hape’s management has taken commendable initiatives in reducing their carbon footprint, several organisations have gone a step ahead and documented their sustainability initiatives in the form of annual sustainability reports. These sustainability reports usually form part of the annual financial report of a company. Also, there are increasing pressures from pension funds as well as stock exchanges around the globe for large multi-nationals to incorporate sustainability report into their financial report. Many of the pension funds and fund managers require international companies to substantiate their sustainability claims in order to be listed in their ‘green’ or ‘ethical’ funds. Companies demonstarting best practices aim to be included in Down Jones Sustainability index, FTSE and more. Publishing a CSR report will be critical to business in the future for organisations who are committed to grow their operations in a sustainable way.
LRQA being an independent assurance provider can assist organisations to verify their sustainability or CSR commitment. Independent assurance by LRQA provides confidence to both internal as well as external stakeholders about the credibility, reliability and relevance of reported data and performance information.
Contact us for further information on our CSR Assurance services.