Ence’s biofactory in Navia has closed the year 2021 with outstanding results in both safety and environmental performance, two of the company’s strategic priorities. The difficulties associated with the pandemic and the rise in the price of raw materials and energy have not been an obstacle to ending the year with important advances, endorsed by new recognitions achieved by the Asturian plant, such as the SURE certificate of biomass sustainability , or the revalidation of the Zero Waste seal, from AENOR.
Good safety performance throughout the company was also endorsed at the Navia biofactory, reaching data up to fifteen times better than the average for the pulp and paper industry. This achievement has been reinforced with the achievement of the ISO 45001 certification for occupational health and safety management systems, aimed at protecting workers and visitors from accidents and occupational diseases. In addition, several PSM (Process Safety Management) pilot projects have been developed during the year, showing the company’s commitment to excellence in safety.
In this same area, the company has maintained and reinforced in its Navia biofactory the prevention measures against COVID-19, within the security protocol launched in February 2020. Thus, the entire human team of Ence has maintained, and maintains, strict security measures to be able to carry out its work without risk of contagion, such as disinfection of spaces, a minimum distance of 2 meters between workers, wearing a FFP2 mask -and gloves, in proximity work- or performing the shift changes electronically.
In addition, all of Ence’s facilities are tested on all workers, surpassing 20,000 tests in 2021; and daily audits are also carried out by the operation and security personnel of compliance with the Covid protocol. Safety has been, since the beginning of the health crisis, a priority for the company.
In environmental matters, Ence’s biofactory in Navia closes the year with the lowest levels of odorous emissions in its history, with a reduction of more than 50 percent compared to the previous historical mark. This is one more step in the company’s commitment to achieve zero odor from its activity in Navia. The impulse to the circular economy is also maintained, reaching a recovery of more than 97 percent of the waste generated by the facilities.
The effort and dedication of Ence’s human team has also served to achieve important achievements, such as the aforementioned ISO 45001 certifications in safety, SURE for the sustainability of the biomass used by the plant in the renewable generation process, Zero Waste, and ISO 50001 for energy efficiency. They thus join the rest of the plant’s recognitions, which since 2014 has had the Nordic Swan ecolabel (official ecolabel of the Nordic countries) and, since 2019, the EU Ecolabel for graphic paper, for tissue paper and tissue paper products, among others.
