Improving your score

How to improve your Envirometer score

This page outlines ways to improve your Envirometer score. It gives an idea of the potential environmental gains of separating your waste, for example. Most of the cited measures lead to cost savings, too.

Electricity

Reduce your electrical power consumption.
Switch to green electricity.
Because of how it is generated, renewable electricity has far less environmental impact than the normal 'grey' variety generated using coal, gas, oil or nuclear. In the Envirometer the impact of green electricity is set at zero. This is an approximation, because green electricity also involves raw materials consumption and sometimes also a certain amount of emissions and waste (biomass).
Your Envirometer reading won't alter if you start using more off-peak electricity (if your total consumption remains unchanged). You electricity bill will be lower, though.
Switch to combined heat and power generation (see next item).

Fuel

Reduce the amount of fuel you burn (gas, oil, LPG).
Switch from oil to gas.
Your Envirometer score will be cut by around 75% if you switch from oil to gas. The investments are generally recuperated in less than a year.
Produce your own electrical power and heat in a cogeneration plant.
By switching to cogeneration, a company will use more gas but lower its power consumption. On balance this will mean less environmental impact than separate supply of electricity and gas.

Water and waste water

Saving water has no major influence on Envirometer scores. The environental impact of water use is calculated based on the drinking water production process, the main environmental impact of which is dessication of soils. In the Envirometer this aspect has been provisionally set to zero. This does not capture the actual situation in certain parts of the Netherlands and this point may be refined at a future date.
Saving water will have a positive impact on your bill for wastewater treatment. This is calculated using a standard procedure, with the amount of water procured being multiplied by a 'pollution factor'.
Apply for a reduction in the number of polliution units ('population equivalents') for which you are charged.
If you discharge a relatively large amount of clean water to sewers, or if a lot of the water supplied to your business is not discharged because it evaporates or is processed in certain products, you can apply for a reduction in your assessment. In many cases you may then yourself have to carry out measurements to establish the volume and/or quality of your wastewater.
Treat your own wastewater.

Emissions

Reduce emissions of solvents and coolants.
Swich to solvent-free or low-solvent products .
The solvent percentage is stated on the safety datasheet and packaging label.
Switch to coolants with less environmental impact.

By switching to natural coolants like ammonia, hydrocarbons, water, air or carbon dioxide you can reduce your Envirometer score by 100% compared with use of synthetic coolants. Ask your contractor about the scope for modifying your equipment, which may be essential in connection with safety requirements. If you replace your equipment, matters are even easier, of course.
If you now use PFCs you can switch to HFCs, thereby reducing your Envirometer score by 75%.
CFCs and HCFCs are banned substances (although HCFCs may still be used for refilling existing installations until 2010).

Commercial waste

Generate less commercial waste.
Separate more commercial waste.
In terms of disposal, 80% of unsorted commercial waste is incinerated, with only 20% usefully applied. Separating waste streams means 50-100% useful application. Improved separation therefore means less waste for incineration, which is reflected in the Envirometer score. A high percentage of useful application leads to a better environmental score, with lower environmental costs.

Hazardous waste

Generate less hazardous waste.
Separate more hazardous waste.
Unsorted hazardous waste is incinerated in its entirety and so has no useful application, while 55-100% of sorted hazardous waste does. Improved separation therefore means less need for incineration, which is reflected in the Envirometer score.

Mobile machinery, commuting, business travel and freight transport

If you report kilometres (rather than litres of fuel):

Clock up fewer kilometres.
In future, report litres of fuel used. This will not improve your Envirometer score, but the outcome will be more accurate.

If you report litres of fuel used (rather than kilometres):

Clock up fewer kilometres.
Improve fuel efficiency, by having drivers follow a traning course, for example.

With respect to freight transport:

Cut down on transport.
Whenever feasible, bundle or combine freight flows.
Use express transport as little as possible.

General

Cycle or use public transport instead of the car (for both commuting and business travel).
Make more use of smaller vehicles for transport (compact vans, for example).
Reduce air travel.

Raw materials

Raw materials have no impact on Envirometer scores, except in the case of paper use in offices (for which see next item).

Office paper

Reduce paper use.
Switch to lighter-weight paper (75 or 70 grams instead of the standard 80 gram).
Switch to eco-friendly paper.
Using recycled papier rather than standard paper improves the Envirometer score by around 45%; using recyled paper instead of eco-friendly paper means an improvement of about 25%.

Compensation

Some forms of environmental impact can be compensated for. One example is tree-planting or implementing renewable energy projects to compensate for CO₂ emissions.
This compensation can be entered in the Envirometer by clicking the 'Fine-tuning' button and selecting 'Compensation' from the dropdown menu.

Ongoing optimisation