Leitz Sustainability Initiatives
Leitz as part of ACCO Brands is committed to sustainability. Working in a lean way is the foundation of all our sustainability efforts. Reducing waste in all areas and keeping processes simple and short, help with many of our objectives.
We collected some of our initiatives from our factories and distribution centres on this page.
Reducing our Environmental Impact
Our LEAN philosophy (minimising waste), together with trusted and audited ISO certification schemes and thorough internal programmes, for example for health & safety and supply chain monitoring, form the solid base of our sustainable work. These are the foundations upon which we can manufacture and sell high quality, long lasting products with a lower environmental impact. In addition we work with different product certification schemes to provide consumers with verified more sustainable choices. Finally, we strive to ensure that we communicate to all stakeholders in a clear and transparent manner, in particular regarding sustainable development topics.
Energy Saving Project in our factory
In the latter half of 2019, our Uelzen, Germany facility replaced three older compressors in the facility that are used for various production, maintenance and warehouse operations. The new compressors have updated technologies and include heat recovery systems which make them much more energy efficient. The site estimates that the new compressors save approximately 150 000 KWh per year in energy over the old compressors.
Preventative Maintenance
We are running a Lean philosophy across our company and an important part of this is TPM or Total Productive Maintenance – with the aim of achieving “near perfect production”. The goal here is no breakdowns, no small stoppages or slow running, no defects (less waste) and of course, no accidents.
Constant monitoring and maintenance of the machines before issues arise and thorough checks of raw materials before they are used help to increase machine uptime and hence efficiency which all leads to lower energy use and lower carbon emissions as well as less waste.
The teams in all the factories are constantly working and improving on this which in turn leads to continual improvement on our sustainability goals!
Reduced Packaging
Certain information always needs to be conveyed when a product is sold and this is usually found on the packaging. Single Lever Arch Files are sold without box and for many years the required information was available on a paper insert sheet, which often also informed consumers about other product ranges as well as features and benefits of the product in hand. In 2021 we decided that this could be done better: We re-designed the product label to include all necessary information and moved all communications to our websites, thus saving almost 220 tonnes of paper, the equivalent of over 5000 trees, every year!
Sustainability Report
For more information read the current ACCO Brands EMEA Sustainability Report.
Please note that all figures and initiatives on this page are reported for the whole ACCO Brands EMEA organisation and not the Leitz brand only.