Haidlimar Initiatives Contribute to Production Sustainability Efforts

The Haidlmair management team (from left to right): Rene Haidlmair, Mario Haidlmair and Heinz Klausriegler are intensifying their sustainability efforts. Photo Credit: Haidlmair

The issues of sustainability and coping with the global climate crisis are among the most burning challenges of our time. Countless joint efforts around the world are needed to master the challenges of the next few years and to keep our planet livable for the next generations. Many companies are already making an active contribution, including Austrian company, Haidlmair, which reports that it has already started many initiatives in recent years to do its part. This includes consistent investments in infrastructure in order to reduce CO₂ and work more sustainably.

A few years ago, for example, factory hall lighting was converted to modern, energy-saving LED technology, the ventilation systems were optimized and what is said to be the largest photovoltaic system in the region supplies part of the company with environmentally friendly electricity from solar energy. In addition, Haidlmair points to its thermally insulated production halls, and heat protection glazing installation to minimize the need for air conditioning; the company has been relying on the services of green energy supplier Nahwärme Nussbach (Nußbach, Austria) for many years.

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Haidlmair’s employees have also reportedly made their own sustainability contributions by taking part in a company program which enables the purchase of electric cars at a favorable preferential price; around 15% are already using environmentally friendly e-vehicles from BMW and Volkswagen. All electric cars can be charged free of charge at specially installed charging stations during working hours, and 100% of the electricity for this comes from the company's own photovoltaic system, which is said to save around 10 tons of CO₂ per year. 

“For several years now, our goal has been to become the best moldmaker in the world and now we also want to become the most sustainable moldmaker. We will do everything in our power to achieve this.”

“It is particularly important to me that we preserve a healthy environment for our descendants in all its beauty. I think that is our duty, both in the private and in the business sphere,” says Mario Haidlmair, managing director. For this reason, Haidlmair is going one step further this year: “We have launched some initiatives that also make our molds more sustainable, to ensure that, first and foremost, our customers benefit from this. For this reason, we have changed our company slogan from “For Higher Productivity” to “Productivity for Sustainability,” also to briefly and concisely underpin our objectives and our offerings,” Mario continues.

Haidlmair technicians have carefully examined the entire production process of the molds and their technology and found many CO₂-saving opportunities. These opportunities include, among other things, optimized sizes or compact design, mold-optimized cycle times and the use of technologies that, for example, favor the use of recycled materials, which enable significant energy savings in production or contain digital mold monitoring systems that make individual business trips obsolete. Most of these technologies come from companies in the Haidlmair Group, such as the FDU hot runner system or the mold monitoring system of the joint venture with Hofmann Werkzeugbau, Digital Moulds.

According to Mario, Haidlmair customers benefit from all these ideas and innovations in several ways, including molds that help users achieve their own sustainability goals more easily, and increased productivity via the purchase of new, more powerful molds; the company notes that investment costs can also be partially refinanced through new subsidies from the European Union (EU) and individual nation states. Experts from Haidlmair are on hand to provide customers with advice and assistance.

“We are still waiting for the details of the funding that the EU has already presented in this area. But we see a lot of potential here in the coming months and years. The aim must be to jointly enable a more sustainable, but at the same time more productive production,” says Mario, explaining another advantage of purchasing new molds with the Haidlmair sustainability bonus.

However, all these efforts towards sustainability are far from being the end of the story. A few more steps are planned for the next few months, both operationally and in terms of the molds offered. “For several years now, our goal has been to become the best moldmaker in the world and now we also want to become the most sustainable moldmaker. We will do everything in our power to achieve this,” Mario concludes.