Biover
| Type | Business |
|---|---|
| Sector | Other |
| Business size | 10-49 |
| Area of green Expertise | Procurement |
| Business network/ Club membership |
Club of West-Flanders sustainability charter |
| Website | www.biover.com |
| Contact | Contact this case study |
Biover, founded at the end of 1985, is a Belgian company specialising in phytotherapy and natural health products. Biover is a young and dynamic company, with 25 members of staff. In 2003 Biover became part of the larger Omega Pharma-group, Green Division department. Starting with just 3 vitamin-based supplements, today Biover can offer an extensive variety of natural products: mother tinctures, essential oils, vitamins, minerals and body-care articles (also with natural ingredients).
Both the number of our own brand name products and the number of products manufactured under private labels have grown rapidly. The Biover market extends beyond the borders of Belgium (mainly wholesale). Our company exports to Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, etc.
Renewables, energy monitoring and measures, solar energy production, use of organic ingredients where possible.
West-Flanders sustainability charter (former West-Flanders environmental charter)
ISO14001 (environmental management system).
Many products are bio-certificated.
Biover is strongly related to nature (natural and healthy products), so we are willing to contribute to the reduction of energy consumption and waste management and at the same time willing to guarantee a higher comfort level for the employees.
Energy savings & renewables:
- Energymonitoring: Registration of the temperature at night and in weekends in the production department and warehouses resulted reduction of heating demand during these times of absence.
- A thermographic scan resulted in placing Luxafoil on all windows, in order to reduce both the cooling demand in summertime and the heating demand in wintertime.
- Staff engagement by personal contact: turning off policy for lights and computers (screens) when absent
- Photovoltaics : 59,2 kWp installed
- Optimization of lightning: Future plans
- Optimal daylight usage by installing innovative system ‘Sun Trackers’
- Create subcircuits in existing lightning circuit of the warehouse and introduction of detectors of movement
- Procurement: As not that many suppliers have an environmental management system, we have included this topic in the supplier evaluation that annually take place. The presence of a system gives the supplier a higher rating.
Waste management:
- Registration and separation of all waste streams
- Minimization of production waste and recycling/ reusing packages, where possible
Sometimes it is better to focus on small things instead of the big projects. I’ve learned that by introducing 5 little changes, you often can get a similar result with a lot less cost and effort (in terms of benefit for nature in the round). Of course, these small improvements seem less spectacular and are of almost no economic profit to the marketer.
I also learned that these little efforts are more appreciated by the employees, which creates commitment and so in this way they learn things they can also apply at home.
For now, most things we implemented were relatively small projects and easy to implement, these didn’t cost a lot of money and were operational after a few weeks. On the other hand, the installation of photovoltaics was a big project. This project took almost 2 years from first feasibility study to realization, but still isn’t fully operational.
A key lesson is: Before you start a new energy project, make sure that you have all the information you need. Otherwise lots of time and money could be needed to finish the project.
POM East Flanders (http://www.pomov.be)
POM West Flanders (http://www.pomwvl.be)
