Villeroy & Boch Gustavsberg AB recieved the EMAS Award at the annual prize ceremony in Lisbon November 19th. The company was rewarded for their extensive, long-term environmental work in the plant in Vårgårda, Sweden. Even though the production in the factory has increased they have managed to reduce the environmentally hazardous waste considerably.

Villeroy & Boch Gustavsberg AB was one of the winners in EMAS, the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, annual prize ceremony held in Lisbon November 19th. A long-term and extensive environmental work at the factory in Vårgårda made Gustavsberg the winner of the award in the competition where 32 of the most successful EMAS registrated organisations were nominated. The award was handed over by Mr Francisco Nunes Correia, Minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Regional Development in Portugal and Mr Timo Mäkelä, Director for Sustainable Development and Integration, DG Environment, European Commission.

The Vårgårda factory is certified to iSO 14001 and registered in accordance with EMAS. Everything from energy- and water saving technique in the manufactured taps to the stages of production, transports and energy usage has been gone through and as an effect Gustavsberg has been able to increase the manufactured volumes but still reduced the hazardous waste prominently.

- During my years as environment and quality manager at Gustavsberg, I have seen a tremendous development. The entire environmental debate has changed and today we are thinking in new ways. The key now is looking at the big picture; to see the total environmental impact from our operation. The overall impression is that we are entering a new generation of environmental work where life cycle analyses and the consumers play an important role in the calculations. This is where we will achieve many of the major environmental improvements, while there is clearly also scope to improve the little things, says Matti Weineland, Environmental and Quality Manager at Gustavsberg's Vårgårda plant.

Environmentally friendly manufacturing and transports of Gustavsberg's products is of course important but consumers also play an important role in the total environmental impact of the products. This is a fact that has influenced Gustavsberg's product development on many levels; partly with functions that save energy and water but also by ensuring that the products are of such high quality that they last a long time.

EMAS aim is to recognise and reward those organisations that go beyond minimum legal compliance and continuously improve their environmental performance. In addition, it is a requirement of the scheme that participating organisations regularly produce a public environmental statement that reports on their environmental performance. It is this voluntary publication of environmental information, whose accuracy and reliability has been independently checked by an environmental verifier, that gives EMAS and those organisations that participate enhanced credibility and recognition. EMAS is based on ISO 14001 and is thus a communication tool for all ISO-certified companies and organisations in Europe.

You can find more information about EMAS on: www.emas.de
Read more about the competition on: www.emasawards2007.eu
You can get press photos in Gustavsberg's media bank on:
http://gberg.citat.se/marketstore/

For more information you are welcome to contact:
Kristina Busic,
PR- & Communications Manager at Villeroy & Boch Gustavsberg AB,
kristina.busic@gustavsberg.com, +46 76-135 83 62.