On Friday I went to see another factory here in the south of Brazil; they’re an American company who produce air-conditioning units and although they were keen to stress that “they’re not yet a sustainable company”, they certainly have a strong CSR company. I think that compared to the automotive company that I have been working with, this tends to focus more on the social aspects than the environmental; they ran many schemes such as training disadvantaged local students and providing free healthcare, vaccinations and exercise facilities to their employees. This is not to say that they did not have a strong policy of reducing their imapct on the environment, it is just that I came away with the impression that their motives for doing so were either because it was profitable to do so or because they were being forced to do so through legislation. (I found it very surprising that, before I came, one of my professors told me that he believes legislation has no impact on whether a company implements sustainable manufacturing or not; at the automotive company I certainly found this to be true but I do not think this was the case at the A/C manufacturers.).
Whilst on this site visit, I learnt a bit more abot a new law that has neen passed in Brazil which is very similar to the EU’s WEEE directive; all electronic equipment must now be returned to the manufacturer to be recycled. Speaking to Christiane, the environmental engineer who was showing me round, she explained that this would take a long time to come into effect because many manufacturers are not in a position to receive used products and dismantle them. She also highlighted the massive differences between the North and the South of Brazil and indicated that this would be another reason why it will take so long to bring this law into effect. In the South, there are many companies who are able to recycle materials but this infrastructure does not exist in the North. Not only that, there is not a culture of recycling (such as waste segretation) in the North and so she believes that people will need to receive better education on this before this law can work properly.
One thing that I was really impressed with here was the encouragement that the company gives to their staff to set up “volunteer improvement teams”. This is where 4-6 employees form a team to manage a continuous improvement project. One such team monitored energy usage and found that the company was using vast amounts of electricity at night when, theoretically, nothing was being used. To combat this, they implemented a very simple “Switch it off!” campaign which comprised of signs, stickers, monitor screensavers etc. As a result of this very simple project, the company now saves £132,000 per year. I like this type of initiative because, not only does it obviously benefit the company, but it gives the employees a chance to have their voice heard, lets them make a difference to the company and provides them with training in sustainability.
All of the companies that I have spoken to have placed a huge amount of emphasis on training and I think this is one of the main differences between Brazilian and English companies. I have always found training in the UK to be a bit half-hearted; managers see it more as a “tick in the box” than actually fundamental to business devlopment. In Brazil, it is very much the opposite – lean training at the automotive company that I have been working with proved so successful that they were required to provide their shopfloor with a “lean library” to meet the requests of their operators! I have yet to see a UK company where this is the case…
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