Being a business that embraces sustainability and reduced energy consumption seriously is a foundational principle to us here at Firebolt. Our reputation as a sustainable company is something we don’t take lightly. Every day, we make sure that we are doing everything possible to lower our carbon footprint. Although our work is never done, here is how we are striving to do just that.
Group Commitments and Actions
As part of our sustainability efforts, every new employee that enters our company is fully equipped with training on how to save energy in our office and at home. We also make sure that all of our products are made with energy-efficient based lighting. We are very conscious of hazardous waste and ensuring that each product that we use in development is disposed of properly. We also are in compliance in Europe, with the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive. This means that specialized companies recycle the electric parts of our signs. We are continuously tracking our consignments in order to be able to calculate and compensate for our CO2 emissions by 2024.
Our Future Efforts and Opportunities
We consider locally or regionally sourced materials whenever possible. Our supplier management system is utilized to gain a better understanding of the sustainability of our supply chain. Firebolt makes every effort to use eco-friendly products and materials when we can and recycle left over materials throughout production. One of our biggest sustainability efforts that we made was switching from neon lighting to faux neon and other types of lighting for our signs, which has a huge impact on the environment. LED lighting uses up to 80% less electricity than traditional fluorescent lighting. Recently, we had materials leftover from our desktop screen dividers for schools, so we created signs and donated them to our local chamber of commerce in Michigan.
We have also impacted Greenhouse Gas emissions by using less energy and can also be reduced by limiting business travel, using more sustainable transport options (e.g., sea freight instead of air) and ensuring no accidental emissions of potent greenhouse gases such as sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) which is sometimes contained in electrical equipment.
What We All Can Do
Encouraging and inspiring others to reduce their carbon footprint is important to us and part of our training program for new employees. Recommendations range from being conscious of how much water you use everyday, avoiding buying single-use plastic containers for food products, to reducing energy consumption overall, by switching off lights and unplugging any electrical products when they are not in use. Also, walking and biking, when possible, is a huge step in reducing your carbon footprint. Little changes every day can help make all of us more sustainable and environmentally conscious. Additional ideas can be found here at https://www.epa.gov/energy.
Our CEO, Philip Ochtman, recently sat on a Forum hosted by EcoVadis talking about sustainability. Check it out here. We are proud to hold a Platinum EcoVadis Sustainability rating; a rating earned by only 1% of companies assessed,
