Annual Review
Environmental management certified by ISO 14001
Sustainable protection of the environment
Environmental protection affects all ZF locations and employees. The company’s environmental protection policy is integrated into all organizational units and processes. All production plants operate at a high technical level to protect the environment. In 2010, 107 production companies and organizational units worldwide were certified according to the international ISO 14001 standard by the independent auditing company DNV. Compliance of the individual locations was verified by an external audit in accordance with the so-called multisite procedure. Workshops were held regularly to provide employees at all plants with proper environmental protection training. To promote environmental awareness, the ZF Environmental Award was presented for the 15th consecutive year in 2010. This award for outstanding achievement in environmental protection was given for the first time to a location in China.
The existing Environmental Protection department was merged with the Work Safety/Health and Corporate Security departments in order to leverage the synergies of the individual issues. Implementation in the divisions and locations will take place in 2011. Numerous measures on improving operational environmental protection were implemented at ZF locations. As part of this process, the essential core areas included waste-water treatment, energy conservation, and emissions reduction. With the implementation of REACH, Europe’s Chemical Act, various activities to address substitutions for the most dangerous chemicals created a main focus of action in 2010. These activities centered on different softening agents in rubber and plastics products. A project was initiated to set up a global hazardous substances management system. During various building projects, clean-up of inherited pollution was completed at five locations. Within the framework of corporate development projects, environmental risk as well as work safety risks were assessed for eight projects by an environmental due diligence audit, also for a French aluminum die-casting company taken over by ZF. In total, € 11 million was spent on new environmental protection facilities and € 34 million for operation and maintenance at the German and international ZF locations.
