Green News: SPES as an eco-friendly business

Green News: SPES as an eco-friendly business

New location of our company leads to new plans and rules. As you may remember, ecology is particularly close to us and here we’ll try to sum up the previous year in this light. We’ll also reveal our plans for the future.

Especially inspiring is the vision of a closed-circuit economy described in Cradle to Cradle by W. McDonought and M. Braungart. In short, with proper manufacturing processes this system would let us produce the same goods, limiting the usage of natural resources and production of waste. In fact, so-called waste would no longer go out of circulation but still work as a valuable component of future goods.

This utopian vision in our branch is not possible, at least for now. Still, lately we’ve made a few steps in this direction.

Digitalization and automatization = better management of manufacturing cuttings

New workshop and devices allow for automatization of cutting in standard products. So-called cutter nod only reduces the amount of waste, but also increases the quality of the cut-out pieces. Non-standard gear and custom-size gear are still hand-cut.

The ECO Line goods you already know are the ECO Waist Bag and Diamond Plastron 800N. You can also expect a special HEMA skirt in Diamond style.

In the Historical Line we use smaller parts of textiles to prepare special 800N panels which increase the puncture resistance in classic historical clothing. For example, FG Historical 800N is an equivalent of medieval gambeson, but thanks to the panels it has less inner layers - thus, it’s more convenient to wear.

Production with renewable energy and a step into electromobility

At the beginning of 2023 our workplace was equipped with a photovoltaic installation of ~40 kW power. This solution will allow us to use clean solar energy for production. It will also relieve the national energy system and lower the usage of energy from coal-fired power plants, which are the base in Poland. What is more, we are planning to gradually expand our energy storage.

In 2022 we started the process of exchanging our vehicles to electric, emission-free models. Due to no emission and energy from our renewable sources, and also lower costs of usage and exploitation, this type of car will serve us longer than traditional cars.

The whole process will take several years and first we’ll focus on the most used vehicles.

How do we balance the CO2 emission?

We plant trees! What is more, we financially support plantations where newly planted trees will absorb CO2 from the air and produce oxygen. This year I personally planted several dozen poplar trees and willows. We also bought 20 trees on the plantation. Every year we’ll receive a green certificate with information on how much CO2 was absorbed by our trees.

Eco-leather and an alternative for Asian textiles

Where it’s possible, we replace the natural leather from our gear with synthetic leather. Currently synthetic leather is present in Unity overlays and AP 800N PRO. Now we’re upgrading our Lobster gloves.

To shorten the logistics chain and lower the CO2 emission from transport of textiles from Asia to Europe, in 2023 we’re planning to find new manufacturers in Europe. Together we’ll try to design new fabrics dedicated strictly for HEMA.

As you can see, on the inside we successively implement new solutions which will both help this planet and give a product of the highest quality. How do you like these steps? Do you have some more ideas to inspire us?

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