3Minimizing Environmental Impact

3.1Energy and carbon management

Reducing Cicor’s greenhouse carbon emissions not only fulfills customer requirements but also affects the company’s reputation within the industry. Increasing the company’s energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions also lead to a reduction in costs. As a high energy consumption company, the Group acknowledges its responsibility and obligations in this regard.

Cicor has a number of policies and measures in place that contribute to its goal of becoming a greener company. The Group establishes responsibilities, provides guidance for relevant departments in reviewing energy use, and formulates standards and norms for energy consumption. Among its initiatives, the Group is replacing outdated, low-efficiency equipment, investing in modern, high-efficiency production lines, and maximizing the energy efficiency of buildings by regularly maintaining lighting, ventilation and cooling systems, and using natural light optimally. In addition, in 2023 Cicor will install an additional solar farm on the roof of the site in Wangs, which will allow the site to produce its own energy for the climatization of the clean room. Overall responsibility for energy and carbon management lies with the maintenance and production manager (site manager). The Group tracks its energy and carbon management through specific KPIs, including the consumption of electricity and energy (such as gas and oil) and CO₂ emission levels.

Across its sites, the Group is making progress. In 2022, the production site in Arad completed the installation of a photovoltaic system on the roof of the building to generate climate-friendly electricity and require less energy from the general grid. At Bedford, meters have been installed on all in-house control panels to provide accurate monthly consumption data. This allows for an exact monitoring and evaluation of energy consumption, from which further improvement measures can be derived. The production site in Singapore has moved to a new Green Mark Platinum building which uses significantly less energy. The Green Mark certification system is a rating system for environmentally friendly buildings developed by the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore. In Suzhou, an exhaust gas treatment system for the injection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) was introduced to further minimize environmental impact.

3.2Resource efficiency of production

Besides reducing Cicor’s environmental impact, resource efficiency helps minimize production costs. Cicor manages the resource efficiency of its production to ensure continuous improvement, with several performance initiatives in place. The Group implements new technologies, minimizes material consumption, lessens technological scrap, optimizes stocks and strictly monitors the expiration dates of received materials and chemicals. Cicor advances the circular economy by selectively collecting waste for recovery or recycling, and also, under contractual agreement, recycles the electronic parts of products for its customers. The Group uses recycled raw materials for injection molding (excluding automotive and medical parts) and sells waste, including unused packaging materials and scrap metal. Cicor has further implemented processes for waste reduction in accordance with ISO 14001. The effective usage rate of raw materials is greater than 98%, while molding yield is more than 99%.

In cooperation with the World Resource Company (WRC), the production site in Boudry has developed and introduced a carbon-neutral process in 2022 for the complete recycling of copper sludge. In addition, wastewater treatment was fully internalized and the recycling of plastic waste was driven forward. Furthermore, Cicor’s Excellence 2022 program, which aims to reduce waste and increase efficiency, was implemented globally at all production sites.

Most of Cicor’s sites manage resource efficiency of their production with a monthly review of designated KPIs, including water consumption, reduction of waste, recycling, amount of scrap and productivity. Goals are continually evaluated with dedicated teams and action plans.

3.3Environmental management and compliance

The Cicor Group understands the importance of effective environmental management, not only to fulfill its vision of being a more environmentally friendly company but also to comply with local laws and regulations. As a high energy consuming company, with a significant proportion of electroplating and chemical processes, Cicor recognizes its obligation to monitor and reduce its environmental impact. From a business perspective, management of Cicor’s environmental footprint saves energy, differentiates the company from its competitors, and reduces costs, in addition to enabling the Group to promote greener activity.

The Group works to limit its environmental impact in line with ISO 14001. All Cicor’s sites are ISO 14001 certified, enabling the Group to monitor and reduce its environmental impact and costs. Following the guidelines, Cicor identifies its environmental impacts and controls them through its operations, in addition to pinpointing any risks and emergency situations that could arise. Cicor has instilled a culture of establishing objectives and defining roles, responsibilities, resources and competencies, as well as authorities. The Group adheres to the certification in building and maintaining policies and in its communication. Moreover, the Group heeds the ISO 14001 criteria by acting in accordance with legal requirements, assessing results with audits and improvement programs where new objectives are specified. In 2023, the site in Arad will additionally implement an energy management system following ISO 50001.

The Group wants to further its environmental management and compliance beyond the improvement initiatives in its facilities and practices in order to meet increasingly stringent environmental laws and regulations. Cicor’s aim is to determine and fulfill all legal and other requirements regarding the environment where applicable. For this purpose, Cicor has begun to cultivate a company culture of continual communication, training and awareness raising on this topic. In 2022, there were no known environmental violations.

Some production sites have a zero environmental accidents objective. The site in Boudry, for example, is adhering to the OPAM law (Ordonnance sur les accidents majeurs) and the federal program of energy monitoring and saving, in addition to submitting an official annual report to its local environment authorities. The site in Boudry employs a health and safety and environment engineer and two full-time equivalents (FTEs) in its wastewater treatment facility.

Cicor uses KPIs to monitor its environmental management and compliance. KPIs include the number of sanctions from local authorities for environmental infractions, compliance rate with legal obligations, and waste recovery fulfillment rate. Audits are executed and their results evaluated. Further monitoring is accomplished through inspections and test results from suppliers.