Commitment to the environment and the application of the principles of circular economy have always been part of our DNA, being one of the core values of our company.
Our business is the remanufacturing of printers, copiers, and toner cartridges and since our beginnings we have applied processes that have allowed us not only to reduce waste but also to manage the waste we produce in a more responsible way.
The correct execution of these processes led to receiving, last Thursday, June the 2nd 2022, the Zero Waste Verification Declaration from the representatives of the certifying entity SGS. It is a true recognition that certifies and standardizes the waste management work that we have been carrying out for years.
A visit from the representatives of the certifying company SGS
Our General Manager, Manuel Muñoz, together with our Quality Manager, Rosario Caro, and our Operations Manager, José Ángel Muñoz, received in our facilities the representatives of the certifying company, Antonio Jesús Escalante, Andalusia Director of Sustainability at SGS and Sergio Muñoz, Business Development in Western Andalusia.
During this visit, the SGS representatives officially handed over the Zero Waste Verification certificate.
In addition, they were able to personally verify our commitment to the environment, verifying how, during all the processes carried out in our printing equipment remanufacturing activity, we manage waste in an organised manner, in accordance with the criteria of the Zero Waste Verification.
«If there is one thing that became clear to us during the visit, it is that a perfect definition of GM Technology’s business is this: GM Technology itself is sustainability. Its activity of taking an asset that is on the market, giving it a second life, at the end of the day, is the definition of sustainability and circular economy», said Antonio Jesús Escalante in an interview we conducted to find out what SGS guarantees us with the delivery of the Zero Waste Verification Declaration.
Organised waste management
“Zero Waste” is a work philosophy that contributes to sustainable development and implies, for our part, organised waste management, which means that “waste does not have a direct line to the landfill, but passes through different destinations”, as our Quality Manager Rosario Caro states.
So, during our activity, we not only reduce the amount of waste, but we also prepare it for future reuse, recycling, transformation into raw material or recovery of some kind, which allows us to go a step further and move towards a circular economy model.
The Zero Waste Verification Statement, an assessment of our waste management performance
The Zero Waste Verification Declaration evaluates our performance in waste treatment, of which we extend the life cycle, while additionally achieving a reduction in waste management costs, due to the processes that these treatments entail.
In the same way, this seal gives added value to our environmental certificate based on the UNE-EN ISO 14001 Standard and allows us, as a company committed to the environment, to be aligned with the European Union’s Circular Economy Strategy and with the Sustainable Development Goals, which we are in the process of implementing.
We apply continuous improvements in waste management
The achievement of this certificate is the result of the application of continuous improvement in the way we manage the waste we generate. It is a process we have been carrying out for years and which has gone through several phases, before culminating with the award of the Zero Waste Verification.
The first step was to carry out a thorough planning of our waste management, creating an inventory of actual and potential waste associated with our activity and setting objectives and targets to be achieved to improve waste management.
Then, we established waste minimisation measures and implemented an improvement in the selection of our material suppliers and waste managers.
Thirdly, we drew up a report, in accordance with the criteria of the “Waste Pyramid” which forms part of the “Zero Waste Standard” of the certifying body SGS, quantifying our percentages of reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal of waste.
Finally, the certifying entity SGS oversaw our Zero Waste report and, after verifying the veracity of this, on June the 2nd 2022, it granted us the Zero Waste Verification certificate, which ensures our compliance with the mandatory and minor legal requirements in terms of waste.
Only a maximum of 10% of our waste ends up in the landfill
«The difference that makes the certificate granted by SGS is that we not only give value to the fact that a maximum of 10% of our waste ends up in the landfill, but also that there are procedures and a way of working that are in GM Technology’s DNA», concluded Antonio Jesús Escalante, Andalusia Sustainability Director at SGS, at the end of his visit to our facilities.
In short, the Zero Waste Verification certifies our efforts to prevent waste from ending up in the landfill, ensuring that only 10% of it has this destination. The rest will be reused, recycled, or recovered in some way, allowing us to contribute, once again, to protecting the health of the planet and promoting a circular economy model.
