Interview conducted by Lee PickeringJun 1 2022Reviewed by Lee PickeringIn this interview, AZoCleantech is talking to Lisbeth Hoier Harpsoe about how AMETEK STC works with ESG and how their products help customers protect the environment.
Who is AMETEK STC in short?
AMETEK STC is a global manufacturer and supplier of instruments used for temperature calibration, pressure measurement, materials testing, level measurement and factory automation. Our products are used worldwide to help our customers design, manufacture, and store products within a wide range of industries, including power and energy, food, pharma, robotics, steel, oil, and gas, to mention a few.
What does ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) mean to AMETEK STC?
As a company with more than 400 employees and several offices and manufacturing facilities across the world, we consider it a natural part of our company culture to have an inclusive mindset that supports equality and the local communities in which we operate. Therefore, ESG, and under this sustainability and social responsibility, is something we have always considered a natural part of our identity at AMETEK STC.
In fact, it was such an integral part of our way of thinking and working that we never really thought about publically speaking about it until last year, when we added information about it to our websites and more actively started sharing information about our ESG-related work with our customers, as we experienced that their interest in this started increasing. Not only were they interested in what we, as their supplier, are doing, but also in how we can help them achieve their own ESG-related goals, as several of our products are actually instrumental in this.
Image Credit: AMETEK STC
Is a focus on ESG possible for companies of all sizes?
Focussing on ESG is definitely possible for everyone. As a company, you can contribute in numerous ways regardless of your size or the type of products or services you sell. Manufacturing companies such as ours can contribute by rethinking our product designs and the materials we use for these, focusing on reducing our energy consumption and controlling our waste management.
However, smaller companies or non-manufacturing companies can also contribute. Any small green step, such as switching to more sustainable packaging for the products you ship, using renewable energy, and digitalization of processes that previously were managed through print, are all good examples of how any company, regardless of its size or nature, can contribute to reducing our overall environmental footprint.
The same goes for contributing to social responsibility, where there are several ways for companies to take action. It could be by donating either time or money to relevant causes, but it could also be by actively fighting inequalities or considering including employees with disabilities in the hiring process.
I think the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by United Nations is a fantastic initiative and a great tool for companies of all sizes to get ideas on how they can contribute. If your company is at the beginning of its ESG-journey but does not really know where to start or how to contribute, I would recommend you start by looking at the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. With the 17 fairly broad yet very specific overall goals, it outlines ways where we can all contribute, and it emphasizes that with a collective focus, we can go a long way.
Can you explain what the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals are?
Back in 2015, the member states of United Nations adopted 17 goals that all have the common purpose of contributing to creating a better and cleaner world by 2030. The goals are fairly broad and include, among other things, quality education for all, reduced inequalities, making cities and communities more sustainable, climate action, and responsible consumption and production.
The goals are ambitious and call for action by companies across the world as well as by individuals. The more we all contribute, no matter how big or small, the more we can move the needle in the right direction.
How does AMETEK STC work towards these goals?
Some of the things that we have always focused on at AMETEK STC are diversity, inclusion, and talent development. If you translate that into the terminology from the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, it addresses the goals of reducing the inequalities from both a gender perspective as well as from an educational perspective.
There are a lot of talented youngsters out there who have the skills and will to make a difference in this world, for instance, by inventing new innovative products that will be crucial for the development of the world as we know it today. However, they may not have the financial resources to make it to university. To make sure some of these youngsters get their chance in life, we support them through scholarship programs in some of the communities in which our production facilities are based. Supporting youngsters in pursuing a career within STEM is our main focus as this relates to the nature of our company, where we develop and manufacture products that are used broadly from assisting our customers in reducing their environmental footprint to space missions and Electrical Vehicle charging stations.
Additionally, as a manufacturing company, our focus is also on addressing environmentally related goals. On this account, we are continuously trying to find new ways to decrease our own environmental footprint at our facilities, just like we focus on helping our customers find solutions that can help them decrease their footprint.
Last but not least, our Supplier Code of Conduct requires our suppliers to maintain an effective ethics and compliance program to ensure that they do not use forced labor or child labor and that employees work in a healthy and safe environment.
Can you explain how AMETEK STC is supporting children and young adults to pursue a STEM career?
As AMETEK STC develops and manufactures high-tech products, engineering is something we feel truly passionate about. The world needs skilled and innovative-thinking Engineers today as well as in the future if we want to make sure we can continue to develop better products, more sustainable solutions, and find new solutions to existing problems, not only here at AMETEK STC, but in general and on a global scale.
There is no denying that there is a gender imbalance when it comes to engineering, though, and we need all talents on deck to get the strongest outcome for our future. To support and encourage more young women to pursue a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), we support educational programs focusing on this specific group of students. We support these initiatives both financially but also as guest speakers at schools. Here, some of our female leaders have participated as guest speakers talking to young women about how their own careers within STEM took them to the place they are today.
As mentioned earlier, we also financially support talented students who cannot afford university. Each year, we support several of these young adults through our scholarship programs so they can pursue an education within STEM at one of the universities in the communities in which we operate.
Additionally, we host various initiatives, such as enabling high school students to shadow our Engineers for a day. This way, children and youngsters interested in Engineering spend a day with one of our experienced Engineers to gain a better understanding of what their job entails.
What work is undertaken at AMETEK STC’s facilities, and how does this help protect the environment?
As our manufacturing facilities are spread across the world, with a heavy focus on USA and Europe, we have specific environmentally related metrics that we track across the facilities to make sure we are aligned in our processes and that we continuously have a focus on improving our efforts. Some of the metrics we track are our use of energy, emission, waste, and water. The metrics allow us insights into the effect of our day-to-day work in our production and show us, in a very directly measurable way, how new initiatives that we implement effects our metrics. As an example, an initiative we did to reduce the energy consumption at our facilities was to change the light bulbs to energy-saving LED’s. At our Danish facility alone, this initiative led to a 20% reduction in our power consumption.
Batteries, electronics, and electrical equipment are disposed of in a responsible manner and are picked up by a third party for reuse. Our packaging is picked up by vendors who convert it to alternative fuel and recycled cardboard.
Apart from the core metrics and waste handling, it is up to the individual facilities to implement further initiatives relevant to their specific facility. Good initiatives are communicated across all of our facilities, so these can be adopted in other facilities where they may be relevant.
How do AMETEK STC’s products help customers protect the environment?
At AMETEK STC, we manufacture high-tech products and solutions within sensors, temperature calibration, pressure measurement, and materials testing. Our broad product range means that we manufacture and supply products to a very long and diversified list of industries globally.
For instance, if we take a look at our product range within temperature calibration, some of the industries using our products are the wind, gas, power, energy, wastewater, marine, and pharmaceutical industries. Here, our JOFRA temperature calibrators are used for controlling the temperature to keep a product at the right temperature at all times and thereby reduce energy consumption.
Image Credit: AMETEK STC
The wind power industry uses our Crystal pressure calibrators to calibrate sensors and switches used to control and maintain hydraulic systems for optimum efficiency in wind turbines. For the marine industry, we have developed special calibrators that are used to measure exhaust gases in conventional diesel engines and to ensure optimal burn efficiency in one of the most CO2-heavy industries. These are just a few examples of how our temperature calibrators and pressure measurement instruments help our customers protect the environment.
When looking at our materials testing product line, this is used in the development and quality testing of products that are built to ensure a more sustainable future within energy consumption, waste reduction, renewable energy, and more. For instance, we have developed and sold several systems to test batteries in the Electric Vehicles industry and the packaging industry that is constantly searching for new and more environmentally friendly materials to replace plastic.
Additionally, many industries are on a continuous quest to reduce weight with the objective of reducing the environmental footprint and reducing costs. Typical examples of this are bottles, packaging and automotive. Again, our materials testing products comes into play in the development and quality testing phases.
Image Credit: AMETEK STC
As the world evolves, so do our products and the way they are used. Typically I say that we are part of the development of the future as our products and our Engineers are part of the development phase for hundreds of new products each year before they hit the market.
A great example of how the use of our products evolves as the world evolves is the springs and retractable reels from our Hunter Spring product line. For more than 60 years, Hunter Spring has manufactured springs used at gasoline stations. Today, our Hunter Spring products are still used in conventional gasoline stations. However, they are also used to manage the cables at electric vehicle charging stations.
Sustainability at AMETEK STC
About Lisbeth Hoier Harpsoe
Lisbeth Hoier Harpsoe is the Global Marketing Manager at AMETEK STC, where she leads an international marketing team with employees based in the USA, Denmark, India, and China. As Lisbeth was born and raised in Denmark - a country that has a strong focus on sustainability and is known for its windmills - sustainability, social responsibility, and the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals are a natural part of her everyday life both when it comes to her role as a manager in a manufacturing company with many diversified cultures and as a private person where she is a member of the board of the local running club.
Lisbeth has 20+ years of experience with strategic marketing, growth marketing, and digitalization. Her innovative mindset and her ambition to continuously raise the bar are some of the critical drivers that encourage her to share her experiences with ESG with other companies so they too can take the vital step in becoming greener and more socially responsible companies. As she says, “every effort, however big or small, has an impact.”
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by AMETEK STC.
For more information on this source, please visit AMETEK STC.
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