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The World's Greenest Factory?
Posted: 15/05/2006
Green cleaning products company, Ecover, is based at a factory outside of Antwerp, where it produces around 120 000 bottles of it's increasingly popular products every day. And it seems that even the factory is green. The building is made from several tonnes of sustainable wood and recycled bricks, above which is a 5,600 square metre green roof.
Where most of us have slates or tiles, the factory has cacti and flowering plants, with a 30cm layer of soil acting as insulation. Combined with a south-facing orientation and ceilings studded with skylights, it allows the building to run without central heating or air-conditioning, and with little artificial light.
Even on a dull chilly day, light floods through the roof and gas heaters hang unused from the ceiling. And the green approach extends beyond the building and the products - outside, eco-friendly Toyota Prius cars line up: company cars for the management team. The rest of the 80 staff members are financially rewarded for taking public transport, cycling or joining car-share schemes.
The building and the transport policy is central to the company's approach to the environment, says the managing director, Mick Bremans. “There’s no point telling our customers to refill or recycle Ecover bottles if we’re not doing the same here. We think about the life cycle of the product, not just the ingredients, but the energy involved in its manufacture and disposal too,” he says, showing me a stash of cardboard delivery boxes, all with several layers of address labels. “Each box is used on average 15 times, and that saves us money, too.”
Green Building Press
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