Overview
The element of environmental responsibility is emphasised in Wärtsilä’s approach to sustainability. For us environmental responsibility has two dimensions: products and operations. Most of our efforts to improve our environmental performance, including within our operations, are conducted as part of product development and improvement. This work is supported by operational measures, which are based on achieving high environmental standards and continuous improvement.
Product performance
Wärtsilä’s main role in sustainability is to supply environmentally sound solutions and services, which enable its customers to develop their business in a sustainable way. This requires continuous investment in technology development and an on-going search for new solutions.
Wärtsilä gives strong priority to developing and applying technologies that reduce the environmental impacts of its products. In order to meet the needs of our customers, be prepared for future requirements, and remain an industrial frontrunner, Wärtsilä’s product development must be at all times innovative, determined, and willing to explore new technologies. We strive to develop environmentally sound products and solutions across a wide front, including technologies related to efficiency improvement, the reduction of gaseous and liquid emissions, waste reduction, noise abatement and effluent treatment. With a proactive approach to meeting future demands, Wärtsilä has developed both primary and secondary technologies and broadened the range of usable fuels.
Key features of Wärtsilä’s environmentally sound solutions include:
- Reliability, safety and long life-time
- Solutions to reduce emissions
- Alternatives to heavy fuel oil
- Flexibility in fuel use
- Solutions to maximise efficiency with lowest life-cycle cost
- Solutions to minimise the water consumption
- Optimization of vessel design and operations
Investing in research and product development benefits Wärtsilä’s customers as well as the environment, both in the short-term and over a longer time span. Growth in the world’s energy needs, combined with increasingly stringent environmental requirements, creates a challenging operating climate for companies in Wärtsilä’s line of business. Wärtsilä has responded to these challenges by improving the energy efficiency of its products while simultaneously reducing their emissions.
Operational performance
To continually improve environmental performance within the company’s operations requires the organisation to constantly work in a systematic way. This work is guided by our strategy and its environmental targets, the Code of Conduct, and the company’s policies relating to Quality, Occupational Health and Safety and the Environment, and is co-ordinated and monitored by the Environmental Forum and the EHS management team. In developing our operations, processes and products, we endeavour to use the latest technologies available for improving efficiency in areas such as material and energy consumption, and for reducing and managing emissions and wastes.
Wärtsilä continuously develops and improves its operations and products with the help of certified environmental management systems. Our principle is to apply certified EHS (Environmental, Health and Safety) management systems based on ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 in all Group companies, excluding those companies focusing purely on sales. These units are required to apply Wärtsilä’s internal EHS model. Our EHS management systems cover all the operations of our subsidiaries, which means that we are able to promote environmental protection and reduce adverse impacts on a wide front.
The company’s EHS management system focuses especially on compliance with legal requirements, identifying and reducing environmental aspects, impacts and risks, training personnel and clearly defining their responsibilities, full documentation of activities and procedures, action in emergencies, and continuous improvement of environmental performance. The company’s subsidiaries set their own targets covering significant environmental aspects of their operations, and monitor the overall performance of the management systems.