As part of IDEX Corporation, we believe that sustainability drives growth and provides value to our stakeholders. Sustainability is rooted in the IDEX culture, values, and mission with a strategic focus on product innovation and creating a positive impact for people and the planet and our effort has been recognised in IDEX Green certification
Year on year we’ve changed a lot to the industrial process, some elements were turned off, two old gas fired furnaces were replaced by a new system and much more. We’ve reduced the temperatures of baths used in our manufacturing processes and keep our production environment optimised in terms of temperature and humidity. Added to that, a ventilation need for safety and clean room standards.
Veco has extensive and responsible waste separation, including for empty canisters of chemistry. Packages of oxidizing or toxic chemicals are separated from other empty packaging for good environmental disposal. Metals are collected separately as are plastics from logistical processes and chemical waste streams.
We monitor and manage the usage of the compressor, in volume per month, idle power consumption and load consumption. The system balances the runtime of two compressors to make sure they have equal run-time. Leak detection is now part of the annual maintenance programme. A key project has been to transfer some installations from using flow through cooling to being connected to the cooling tower.
We have significantly reduced the amount of nickel contaminated waste water, and now use the cooling system as part of the heat source for a heat pump. By connecting a line of systems that was previously cooled using ground water (single pass cooling in heat transfer plates) to the cooling water from the cooling tower we are saving water, while allowing us to harvest this heat now our heat pumps have been installed.
With a total capacity of 600kW, the newly installed heat pumps are set to reduce Veco's natural gas usage by 70-80% and cut down CO₂ emissions by 700 metric tons annually. The project reflects Veco's commitment to energy efficiency and environmental responsibility, and has been a significant factor in Veco's IDEX Green Certification.