Environmental

Taking Actions to Reduce our Impact on the Environment

Measuring success at Helios comes in many forms, including how we address the environmental and social aspects of our business: understanding what they are, where they show up across our business, how they shape our operating principles and behavior, and how we hold ourselves accountable.

We continue to make significant strides to improve our internal processes to become a more efficient and sustainable company. In addition to focusing on the environmental aspects in our product innovation, we have ongoing programs to measure our success, and to reduce energy use, water, emissions and waste.

Energy

In addition to reducing transportation emissions through our “in the region, for the region” strategy and implementing energy efficiency investments in our manufacturing operations, in 2021 we also conducted our first Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions inventory. You can find this data within a fact sheet posted here.

Waste

We work diligently across our subsidiaries to identify significant waste streams and reduce waste using production process redesigns, scrap reduction initiatives, electronic waste reduction, and elimination of hazardous materials. 

Water

Water is a fundamental component of our business, especially for our hydraulics manufacturing operations, but an even more important part of the communities where we operate and live. In addition to water conservation efforts already at work across our companies, in 2021 we conducted our first companywide water usage inventory. This inventory establishes a baseline that will be used to measure future improvements in water usage. Examples of progress include:

  • Balboa retrofitted it's water reclamation system and radically reduced the amount of wastewater generated in its plastic injection molding process by recycling it through a cooling tower system.
  • Sun Hydraulics has installed two evaporators to greatly reduce the volume of wastewater sent to a municipal processing plant in our efforts to become a zero-discharge facility in the United States.