Living environmental protection in major projects

Last year BUTTING demonstrated its skill in the production of metallurgically clad pipes for a major project in Indonesia. In addition to some special technical features in production, we were able to come closer to achieving our environmental goals during the dispatch of the pipes.

In the context of a sustainable development process at BUTTING, a central principle of our corporate governance is the equal weighting given to environmental protection and to other company objectives. Limited resources and conservation of the environment require an awareness of the effects on the environment of all processes and a consistent and sustainable optimisation of the production process on the basis of these aspects. Thus for example, our chosen means of transport in completing our major projects provides a crucial contribution to environmental protection and sustainability.

For the major project, both the one-sided clad pipes and the partially two-sided clad pipes with a total weight of almost 10 000 tons had to be transported from the production location in Knesebeck to the port of Brake on the lower Weser. At their destination, the pipes were to be loaded on board a ship for onward transportation.

Using the EcoTransIT World (an ecological transport information tool), the effect on the environment of different transport services in goods transport has been calculated. The results could be compared with the EN 16258:2012 standard. The result for the more than 200 km route was: compared to the road solution, rail transport caused around 75 % fewer CO2emissions in this particular case.

Jürgen Meinecke, Manager Dispatch und Logistics at BUTTING in Knesebeck, explains: "The decision for transportation by the in-house rail link was taken quickly for this project. Using rail transport is the first step for us towards the environmentally sustainable transport of goods."

The Environmental Management System (EMS) at BUTTING in line with ISO 14001 has been implemented for some years. Legal provisions and official requirements are minimum standards for us and we will seek to exceed these where possible. The requirements of the 12th Directive of the Federal Emission Control Act (BImSchV) are implemented in the EMS.

Jürgen Meinecke is convinced: "For BUTTING, environmental protection means avoiding threats to people and the environment, continually reducing resources and energy consumption and minimising emissions and waste. In this way, we actively contribute to safeguarding our natural resources.

BUTTING – Progress by Tradition