Visit to an environmentally friendly company The ZF Hungária Ltd. Visit to an environmentally friendly company Egri Bornemissza Gergely Szakközép-, Szakiskola és Kollégium Galapagar, Spain 03 – 06 May 2015 A projektet az Európai Bizottság támogatta. A kiadványban (közleményben) megjelentek nem szükségszerűen tükrözik az Európai Bizottság nézeteit.

About the company ZF Hungária Ltd was founded in 1995. While selecting the Hungarian site the main goal was to find a competitive, low-cost site to manufacture gearboxes with skilled work force. The product range is constantly expanding and today it is manufacturing manual and automatic transmissions for trucks and buses.

Among its strategic partners 11 Hungarian suppliers can be found Among its strategic partners 11 Hungarian suppliers can be found. The products of ZF are sold on the export markets. Among its customers we can find for example the followings:

ZF Hungary Ltd provides long-term, stable occupations for its employees. However, they require quality-conscious thinking and individual responsibility to the appropriate standards of professionalism. The company takes great care in selecting employees and organizes training courses which provides continuous further training. In order to supply skilled workers the company operates its own training system. Currently the company has 844 employees.

Health, safety and environment The company’s strong desire is to make safe and healthy workplace for employees but each employee’s duty is to facilitate safe working environment, maintain it and protect the environment with their responsible behaviour and comments. As part of it energy saving becomes more and more important.

The commitment to sustainable environmental protection is anchored in The ZF's Corporate Principles and it is the basis for their work. This results in the following: The company is committed to design environmentally friendly. It reduces the environmental impact of its operating process to the minimum. It continuously improves its energy and environmental performance. It actively improves its employees, suppliers, service providers and customers and tries to engage dialogue with the authorities and the public.

Environmentally centred management By 2015, ZF aims to reduce its specific energy consumption by 20 % compared to the 2010 data. The Group aims to reach this target worldwide. In order to support the achievement of this target, ZF is setting up a Group-wide energy management system according to the ISO 50001. As a first step, all German locations were to be certified by the end of 2014.

Another advantage of the introduction of environmental management standards is to provide a safe and environmentally friendly industrial production in which the amount of waste is reduced. During the company's environmental activities it seeks to prevent environmental damages and the full compliance of regulations. The following processes have been the focus of environmental activities:

Air protection The company seeks to reach fewer pollution gets off the air during its operation. For this purpose dust filters are used which reduce the amount of dust with the effect of 85-97%.

Noise protection Protection against the noise caused by the production processes is directed both workers using protective devices (e.g. ear plugs). On the other hand there are tests which continuously measure noise harm caused in the immediate environment by the operation process. So far tests have showed that noise harm is 50% less than the allowable value.

Water protection This activity is especially mean careful treatment of wastewater, groundwater and rainwater protection. In Eger it is very important because the water base of the town is the groundwater and a possible water pollution can cause enormous damage outside the factory in a short period. There used to be 27-28 observation wells in the factory but now there are only three from which samples are taken regularly to make complex tests. The ground water and drinking water base are controlled regularly as well.

Soil protection During the operation of the previous factory a large amount of hydrocarbons had accumulated in the soil. The most serious danger can be caused by oil leaks which can lead to water and soil pollution as well. Under the ZF company there has been clean soil since 2007.

Waste management During the activities of the company 73-75% of the waste is non-hazardous (paper, wood chips, and municipal waste) and a part of it can be sold by the company. The other 27-25% of the waste is hazardous e.g. used oil and oiled clothes. The company collects waste selectively. There is a minimum set of hazardous materials at the company especially because of the danger of it and, of course a specialised company takes it away in a different route from the factory and takes care of the transportation of the hazardous materials.

The expectations of the company environmentally friendly behaviour selectivity trained and qualified staff Our students visited the company in February 2015 and they also took part on a presentation in connection with the environmental policy of the company.

Our students visiting the company: