Eco-efficiency

Aware of our commitment to sustainable development, we are constantly seeking to perfect the production process in our manufacturing plants and forestry sites in order to improve our performance in terms of water and power consumption, effluent generation, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and waste.

We strive to minimize the negative impact of our production processes on the environment and local communities. This process is part of our Environmental Management System (EMS), which periodically monitors the performance of our operations in five categories:

Water and Effluents

We employ water reuse in all of our business divisions and, in 2023, 5.4 billion liters of water were reused internally. Furthermore, in some of them, we have a closed circuit that does not produce industrial effluents, such as our wood panel manufacturing operation in Taquari. Our ceramic tiles manufacturing plants stand out for the amount of running water in the circuit, which is larger than what is collected.

Click here to view our responses to the 2024 CDP Water Security questionnaire.

Waste

We have invested in initiatives that allow waste produced in our processes to be reused, such as using biomass to produce energy. We can also highlight the following initiatives:

Zero Landfill at the São Paulo Metals, Itapetininga Panels, and Tiles units;
Reusing metal scraps in the production process of our bathroom fixtures manufacturing sites, and plastics at Hydra and at Metals as well;
Reusing of broken sanitaryware (pitcher), ceramic sludge, and glazing in our Sanitaryware manufacturing sites, and ceramic mass in our ceramic tiles production;
Using internal compost of ashes, sludge from Sewage Treatment Plants, and food waste in our wooden panel manufacturing sites as fertilizers in our forests.

We employ technology to recover and use 100% of the bronze and brass from residues of the metal parts we produce.

Energy

Dexco has invested heavily to make its industrial processes more energy-efficient and use new, less polluting equipment.

These measures allow the company to set itself apart in the construction industry by replacing fossil fuels, such as BFO oil and natural gas, for renewable sources, like biomass used to produce thermal energy in our wooden panel manufacturing sites.

Most of the energy consumed in our manufacturing sites comes from renewable sources (including Scope 1 and Scope 2 energy sources), mainly our wood panel operations, whose energy mix consists mostly of renewable sources (including Scope 1 and Scope 2 energy sources).

In 2023 we eliminated the use of coal in our processes, replacing it with natural gas with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and help mitigate climate change, in line with our Sustainability Strategy.

Package Offsetting

Our commitment to the social-environmental attributes of our solutions extends to our packages. We offset 100% of the plastic, paper, and cardboard packages that reach end-users all over Brazil with support from a partner company. This initiative is part of one of the targets set within our Sustainability Strategy. The process is traceable and audited.