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CIN, Iberia’s leading paint and varnish company, has substantially reduced its environmental footprint by setting up a treatment unit for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), found in gas emissions, at its Maia industrial site, and by developing more environmentally friendly solutions for its customers.
With an initial investment of €700,000 in technology that is both innovative and ground-breaking in the Portuguese and Iberian paints industry, CIN has achieved a more than 95% reduction in VOC emissions from the 40,000 cubic metres/hr of contaminated air produced by the industrial site in question.
CIN is also committed to developing new and more environmentally friendly product solutions. With this in mind it assigned 30 employees from its Research and Development department to this ‘mission’. They spent more than 55,000 hours working on 36 projects to create new products and rework existing ones, while always maintaining the highly-performing technological standards for which they are known.
José Calvão, Manager of CIN’s Environment, Health and Safety Department, said "We are very happy with the results and pleased to see a significant reduction in our business’s environmental impact thanks to our efforts. But this is not the end. We will continue to develop innovative solutions to reduce our environmental footprint in all areas of the company’s work”.
CIN has always aimed to be at the cutting-edge of innovation and the most advanced technological solutions to protect the environment and surrounding society. To that end the company encourages its household and professional customers to use water-based products and paints low in solvents, ie with a lower VOC content. Not only do these products have a lower impact on the environment, they are also less harmful to the people applying them and those enjoying areas decorated using CIN paints. Thanks to these measures, CIN and its customers achieved an overall reduction of 1170t of VOC atmospheric emissions, making a significant contribution to improved air quality.
Enhanced eco-efficiency
CIN has always set itself the goal of preventing and limiting pollution in all areas of its business. Over the years the company has implemented operational practices to improve its eco-efficiency. This stance is reflected in significant indicators over the same period (2009-2011), such as a 13.2% reduction in total water consumption, a 6.4% reduction in energy consumption, a 6.7% reduction in waste generation, and a recycling and reuse rate of 83% of hazardous waste generated by the company.
CIN’s ability to innovative and ample know-how in the paints sector have made it a reference in research and placed it at the forefront in the development of new trends in the Iberian market and, in particular, in the search for environmentally friendly solutions.
