Corporate responsibility and Biolan

Biolan is deeply committed to corporate accountability and the values of sustainability.

Biolan lives and breathes responsibility. Since its establishment, Biolan has always based its operations on sustainable development.  We are constantly developing new consumer products and solutions to help everyone participate in the recycling of natural resources and reducing our environmental impact.

We are fully compliant with laws and regulations in all our actions. We are aware of the environmental impact of our operations and have set ambitious goals and targets for ourselves in environmental protection.  We always look into solutions and raw-materials with the best possible lifecycle, consumer and usability as well as environmental performance.

Recycling is a driving force in our production. Biolan Group’s environmental business unit utilises various sidestreams and byproducts of agriculture and industry. This allows the reuse of nutrients and energy incorporated in the waste. This also reduces the demand for primary nutrients and energy sources.

Biolan also takes its responsibilities as an employer seriously. We are a reliable, fair and inclusive employer who looks after the wellbeing of its staff and their opportunities for self-development.

In 2012, Biolan was the first manufacturer in Finland to analyse the carbon footprint of its growing mediums and fertiliser products. The results showed that our products have a very low environmental impact because we utilise industrial and agricultural sidestreams as raw-materials. For example, the packaging of soil products accounts for up to 80 percent of the products’ carbon footprint.

Our carbon footprint

Our carbon footprint

We want to see the environmental impact of human activity diminish and we are ready to do our share. We have calculated the carbon footprint of our products so that we know what our impact on the environment truly is and can prove the sustainability of our products with hard facts. We will continue to use the data from the carbon footprint analysis in the future in the development of new, environmentally friendly products and reducing the emissions of our productions.

 

Lifecycle thinking

In the lifecycle principle, the different stages of a product’s life are analysed from start to finish: from raw-materials to production and upgrading to consumption and reuse (recycling, energy production, repurposing as raw material or product, and final disposal at the landfill). At each stage, different inputs are used, such as materials, energy and water, which create outputs such as emissions and environmental loads in the atmosphere, water and soil.

According to the Kyoto Protocol, the greenhouse gasses are CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, HCFs and PCFs. The carbon footprint is the sum of these emissions, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

 

This is how we did it

The carbon footprint assessment was made from “cradle to the gate”: the extraction of raw-materials, packaging and their transport to the Eura plant as well as the production process at Biolan (energy, water and waste). The delivery of finished products to retailers and from there to customers was not included, as they included major variation. The use of soil products and fertilisers do not as such generate emissions. The used packaging materials can be burned and the energy produced by them utilised, or they can be transported to the landfill. Emissions originating in the final disposal were therefore not included in the calculations as they were expected to be negligible. The calculation was conducted in 2010 by Gaia Consulting based on the ISO standards on carbon footprints.

The carbon footprint of a product is expressed as kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2e). /kg of the product.