Operational Excellence

We are focused on continuous improvement throughout our operations and services. At our manufacturing facilities, we have worked to reduce water and energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and raw material waste.

Fourteen of our U.S. based facilities are certified for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Our Cleveland, Tennessee plant received an award from the Kentucky-Tennessee Water Environment Association for outstanding performance in the pre-treatment of industrial wastewater. The Cleveland plant’s sustainable design also earned gold LEED certification.

Total Environmental Protection Expenditures:
GRI G4 EN31
    1.  
    2. US$ Millions
    1. 2011
    2. 31.8
    1. 2012
    2. 29.5
    1. 2013
    2. 27.0
    1. 2014
    2. 30.5
    1. 2015
    2. 34.9

Global Facility Sustainability Program — Through partnerships with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Program and Better Plants Challenge, we initiated a program to provide a global dashboard feed from each of our plants and facilities to promote energy and water efficiency, waste minimization and benchmarking, allowing for cross-functional global collaboration and best practice sharing. This initiative is ongoing in our North America Region facilities, and connected with our global goal of lowering our energy intensity by 15% in 2020, considering 2014 as the baseline year.

Another important goal we are working toward is the implementation of the zero landfill waste from manufacturing by 2022. We are very proud to say, four of our manufacturing facilities in Latin America have already achieved Zero Waste to Landfill.

The Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA) has a Management System for Energy, Environment, Health and Safety (EEHS) that covers 43 sites and has been certified by a third party through a multi-site accreditation according to the ISO 14001:2004, OHSAS 18001:2007 and ISO 50001:2011 standards.

In Whirlpool EMEA, environmental protection and energy management are a priority and for this reason managed through a specific Company organization devoted to Energy, Environment, Health and Safety (EEHS) issues.

Company EEHS managers are responsible for overseeing facility energy and environmental activities and direct capital investments dedicated to specific action plans. Moreover, they are in charge of monitoring national and local legislation, as well as rules and regulations related to the environment. They ensure that senior management and plant environmental professionals understand the potential impact of new or revised policies on their operations, and also conduct compliance audits. Meetings are held regularly to coordinate regional activities. This enables EEHS managers to discuss results, share best practices, and carry out benchmark comparisons against main competitors in key areas, in order to define new actions. Where laws and regulations are less restrictive, we have established and are following our own standards, consistent with our commitment to environmental responsibility.

The energy and environmental plan sets both annual and long-term targets for each site relative to the principal areas of environmental focus: atmospheric emissions, water and waste. This plan is then monitored on a monthly basis to ensure that:

  • plants operate within Company standards
  • new courses of action are planned when required
  • programs and interventions are realigned
  • new and more challenging targets are set

Generating ideas and sharing best practices on energy efficiency and environmental protection is a key objective of the EEHS EMEA team. In 2015 specific initiatives have been carried out: the launch of a website dedicated to internal best practices sharing and management where approximately 110 best practices were collected, which gave birth to approximately 90 ideas with a potential saving of approximately one million euros.

Energy Efficiency GRI G4 EN3 EN5 EN6 EN7

Total GLOBAL Energy (GJ)
    1.  
    2.  
    1. 2011
    2. 9,173,683
    1. 2012
    2. 8,733,477
    1. 2013
    2. 8,410,302
    1. 2014
    2. 8,484,279
    1. 2015
    2. 9,043,762
2015 data affected by acquisitions of Hefei Sanyo and Indesit in 2014.

Wind Farm

Renewable Energy Installations for Manufacturing — We announced plans to use wind energy to power our manufacturing facility in Findlay, OH. The Findlay wind farm is an $18 million “Wind for Industry” project. The wind farm will have five wind turbines installed and Whirlpool will utilize two of them. Through clean, renewable wind energy producing zero greenhouse gas emissions, the wind turbines offset an estimated 13% of the plant’s electric consumption. In addition, for each turbine, Whirlpool will create two $5,000 Megawatt Scholarships to be awarded to local high school students seeking degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The project broke ground on June 15, 2015 and was placed into operation January of 2016. Our overall U.S. wind turbine energy strategy will further drive our goal to decrease the energy intensity for the U.S. Better Plants Program. We are analyzing other opportunities for the use of wind turbines at our other sites globally.


For more information: http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/whirlpool-corporation-announces-plans-to-use-wind-turbines-to-power-findlay-ohio-facility/



Total energy (kWh/unit) in our EMEA operations is composed of gas, electric, hot water/steam and other less relevant sources of energy (diesel, LPG, etc.) used to produce one average appliance. In this respect, the comparison between 2014 and 2015 performance shows a reduction of energy use of roughly 11%.


Thanks to projects delivering reduction in primary energy consumption, our Cassinetta and Naples plants in Italy and Wroclaw, Radomsko and Łodz plants in Poland received the White Certificates, incentives that governments release as results of a proven reduction of energy consumption (1 White Certificate = reduction of 1 TOE* in primary energy consumption).

Metric Ton of Oil Equivalent


Łodz and Siena implemented a heat recovery system, allowing the re-use of hot air produced by chillers of thermoforming machines and compressors to warm up factory locations and reduce energy use from heating systems.
Siena
Łodz


In Wroclaw, our manufacturing site has two heat recovery systems that re-use thermal energy generated by the manufacturing processes that produce hot water to be used both for process and for heating.

In 2015, with the installation of a new compressor, an additional heat exchanger was implemented, increasing the volume of hot water produced using heat recovery and thus reducing consumption of primary energy.




The Naples plant in Italy has a photovoltaic plant producing more than 630,000 kWh per year (approximately 10% of its electric needs), which brings a yearly saving of approximately 500 tons of CO2.

The Faridabad plant received our first initiative in India on renewable energy where a 100kW solar panel was installed in April 2014. A second solar panel was installed in 2015 which increased the solar capacity to 250kW.

Water Efficiency GRI G4 EN8 EN9 EN10


Total Global Water (m3)
    1.  
    2.  
    1. 2011
    2. 6,852,426
    1. 2012
    2. 6,276,939
    1. 2013
    2. 6,564,730
    1. 2014
    2. 6,355,661
    1. 2015
    2. 5,999,780
2015 data affected by acquisitions of Hefei Sanyo and Indesit in 2014. Global goals under review to address these acquisitions.

Our operations use water in a conscious way. We’ve been more efficient year after year with our focus on continuous improvement and the use of innovative technologies. Water sources vary from region to region. We use water respecting local legal requirements and considering water availability in that area.

North American Plant Honored for Protecting Tennessee’s Water — In September 2015, the Cleveland, TN plant in NAR received an award from the Kentucky-Tennessee Water Environment Association (WEA) for outstanding performance in their pre-treatment of industrial waste water. This plant is the world’s largest manufacturing facility of premium cooking appliances including ranges, ovens and cooktops. The Cleveland plant has also earned gold certification for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for the sustainable design of the facility.

In our Latin America Region, we are treating and purifying water through our waste water treatment stations, for processes consumption, as well as capturing rain water. We have achieved a 13.6% savings in water consumption by using the recycled water and rain water. In one of Whirlpool’s largest manufacturing sites, the Joinville appliances plant in Brazil, the water intensity was decreased by more than 70% (cubic meters/major appliance), during the last ten years, through a dedicated water management team, water reuse, processes improvements and refurbishment, innovation and new technology implementation and training. During the last five years, the water treatment and reuse at the Joinville plant is equivalent to the annual water consumption of approximately 1,600 households.


Whirlpool Corporation sees water as one of the most important natural resources to be protected, so much so, that our EMEA region has taken the dedicated step to initiate Energy & Environment Workshops. Additionally, we track the use of water in our processes, through an indicator named total water (L/unit), which represents the total water used to produce one average appliance, including process cooling, technological use and product testing. It is the sum of withdrawal from industrial wells and from municipality water supply. The reduction since 2013 is –57%.






Water sources vary from region to region. We use water respecting local legal requirements and considering water availability in that area.


Rainwater purification process in Brazil


In our India manufacturing plants, we have reduced water consumption by 35% in our operations since 2011. We reduced water consumption by 6% in 2015. One of the key projects at Faridabad plant was to refine effluent in an effluent treatment plant (ETP), to use the ETP’s output as our input in the reverse osmosis plant, thus reducing water use.


Water Discharge GRI G4 EN22

Total water discharges related to our global operations are shown in the table below. We work in compliance with local, regional and global regulations, respecting the most restrictive regulations. We go beyond legal requirements, returning water back to the environment in better conditions than required. Where available, our sites are connected with public sewer systems. Where not available, we are discharging water in a quality that is locally specified by regulators or even better.


Destination 2015 [m3]
Public Sewer Systems 1,082,451
Receiving Streams — Surface 416,167
Irrigation — Land Application 90,641

Air Quality GRI G4 EN15 EN16 EN17 EN18


GLOBAL Scope 1 + 2 (Ton CO2 eq)
    1.  
    2.  
    1. 2011
    2. 765,998
    1. 2012
    2. 862,912
    1. 2013
    2. 714,825
    1. 2014
    2. 777,000
    1. 2015
    2. 873,111
2015 data affected by acquisitions of Hefei Sanyo and Indesit in 2014. Global goals under review to address these acquisitions.

SmartWay® — Currently, 99.86% of North American shipments are moved with SmartWay® carriers. Within our North America Region (NAR), we require contracted carriers to be SmartWay® certified, helping them move more goods, more miles, with lower emissions, and less energy. In 2015, we were honored with a SmartWay® Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as an industry-leading supply chain regarding environmental performance and energy efficiency.

In 2015, we reduced diesel fuel consumption by 1.3 million gallons through improved miles-per-gallon, which equated to a reduction of 13,400 metric tons of CO2 emission. In addition, we reduced total fuel consumption in 2015 by more than 250,000 gallons by increasing rail use. This ultimately reduced over 2,700 metric tons of CO2 emissions for the year.



The quantity of CO2 per unit produced in our EMEA region has been following a reduction trend during the last two years, mainly driven by the reduction of energy consumption: the amount of CO2 in kg per unit decreased from 7.23 in 2014 to 6.42 in 2015 (–11%).

Refrigerator foaming process


Exceeding the Montreal Protocol requirements, both refrigerator plants in India, one in Faridabad and the other in Pune, transitioned from using HCFC blowing agents to cyclopentane, a hydrocarbon (HC), a non-ozone depleting substance (ODS). The new blowing agent is not only zero ODS but also has a global warming potential (GWP) of just 11; that’s considered negligible compared with previous technologies. The company set and met the conversion date for January 1, 2015, ahead of the Protocol set dates. Whirlpool Corporation invested U.S. $8 million to complete the important conversion. World class safety standards have been installed in both the facilities which have been externally certified.

Materials and Wastes GRI G4 EN23

Total GLOBAL waste (tons)
    1.  
    2.  
    1. 2011
    2. 356,088
    1. 2012
    2. 388,291
    1. 2013
    2. 392,821
    1. 2014
    2. 401,869
    1. 2015
    2. 432,792
2015 data affected by acquisitions of Hefei Sanyo and Indesit in 2014. Global goals under review to address these acquisitions.

The Zero Waste to Landfill Program in our Brazilian facilities was initiated in 2011, targeting zero waste from manufacturing by December 2014 and zero waste from non-manufacturing activities (offices, cantinas, toilets) by December 2015.

zero waste
to landfill


Click to Zoom In


To be zero waste to landfill in manufacturing was an important achievement in our Latin America Region (LAR), but we were especially proud to extend it to our offices as well. That is a leadership position. LAR keeps working diligently to maintain the targets, as it is a continuous challenge, especially considering the local infrastructure and the current economic environment.

Whirlpool EMEA is also strongly committed to reducing waste generation in its production activities. Accordingly, reusing and recovering materials are widely practiced throughout our facilities. Our approach is simple, but effective: what cannot be reused is recycled and when that is not possible, it is disposed of with minimal environmental impact (waste-to-energy conversion or treatment, with shipment to landfills only as a last resort).

To keep track of the performance of this process, we set up a specific indicator called total waste (kg/unit), which is the total waste material generated to produce one average appliance, including waste material from three main areas:

  • Technological: material not used during the transformation from raw material to product

  • Scrap: material wasted due to damaged or not right first time handling and scraps from cutting and stamping

  • Packaging: material used to protect the raw material during the transportation and storage



The total waste per unit produced has decreased from 4.1 kg in 2014 to 3.7 kg in 2015 (–8%).


Recycled waste in Whirlpool EMEA is represented by the amount of the total waste material the organization recycles and prevents from disposal. This was delivered through performing segregation and on-site waste management.



The index over the last five years averaged 92% to 94% of the total amount of waste produced.


In India, all three facilities have installed compost units which convert canteen waste food to compost. We expect to compost 27 tons of waste food, which is being used to fertilize landscape around the plant. In 2015, Faridabad achieved 80% reduction in waste to landfill as effluent treatment plant waste and foam were incinerated under controlled conditions.




As part of the Mexico Federal Program of Environmental Leadership, Whirlpool Ramos Arizpe (WRA) participated in the 2015 effort and guided sub-suppliers, customers and other stakeholders as a lead facility to run environmental efforts within the region.

More than 20 different eco-friendly projects were submitted to contribute to this program’s success. We were able to achieve a remarkable increase in the percentage of recycling, moving from 75% up to 95.6% within the year.

WRA will be our lead facility in our North America region in the upcoming years to become a zero landfill facility with 100% of scrap materials recycled.

Whirlpool Ramos Arizpe has also been involved in Coahuila state and Mexico federal government programs to reduce environmental impacts to minimize scrap and increase the recycling of residuals. We are proud to report that we are:

  • The first private organization to be certified a green office in the state of Coahuila

  • Achieving a 25% reduction in use of paper in offices

  • Recycling 95.6% of all materials generated by plant

  • Reducing garbage by 50%

  • Recycling 165,900 caps of plastics bottles used for charity efforts