For a long time now, sustainability has been not only nice thoughts but also a business imperative: All companies must reduce their environmental impact, and monitoring and reporting CO2 emissions is the key first step. After a record-breakingly hot summer and warm weather continuing into the middle of September, even in Finland, it is easy to understand the absolute necessity of these measures. At ATA Gears, we are determined to do our part.
Although reporting according to the CSRD directive does not so far apply to companies the size of ATA Gears, we have nevertheless started to prepare for it, a major reason for that being that we definitely want to continue as a supplier of power transmission components to bigger companies. And as these are already subject to the directive, we cannot bury our heads in the sand but act, as ever, proactively and be more active and transparent.
The time is now
Calculation is a good start to committing to common goals and at the same time an efficient means to achieve them. We aim at a clear view of all operations throughout the company and will determine what is needed to achieve carbon-neutral status no later than 2035. “Obviously everybody agrees that reducing carbon emissions is an absolutely essential business action, that the monitoring work needs to be done on all levels and that the time to start reporting is now. So, although our customers have not so far imposed any stringent requirements on us, we like to act proactively, as some of them require that reporting of both direct emissions from company-owned and controlled resources and indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy has to be under way by the end of 2025,” says ATA Gears’ QHSE Manager Janne Nummi.
Better to take concrete action than pay compensation
ATA Gears has so far targeted concrete measures at increasing the degree of recycling, so the amount of waste per produced ton has been reduced every year by making recycling increasingly efficient. “In fact, unlike in many other companies, our products are 100% recyclable (metal), likewise the wooden packages we deliver them in,” Janne Nummi explains. At the beginning of 2024, more enhancement measures were undertaken at ATA Gears, and the recycling degree of plastic and corrugated board increased while the amount of energy waste was reduced. Next in line in ATA Gears’ sustainability action is heat recovery from heat treatment, now under closer investigation.
Innovative product design is a part of sustainability, and this must be born in mind among all the cuts and reductions. It is one of ATA’s Gear Doctors’ strategic goals to design smaller gears to offer the same output – or if you like, gears that perform even better. And the production of those gears will use carbon-free electricity as of 2026.
Transportation and logistics are among the biggest sources of emissions in industry, and there, too, ATA Gears is making continuous improvements. ATA’s own pickups were changed to e-cars in summer 2024. Contracts for emission-free solutions have been made with forwarders. Several of ATA Gears’ employees are already motivated to use e-bikes for commuting because of the benefits to personal health and the environment. ATA is also subsidizing e-bike acquisition. In Finland there is a tax advantage for employees with the e-bikes – tax-free income up to 1 200 euros, provided that the employer is willing to offer its employees this benefit, which ATA does.
ATA Gears has not yet made any decisions on emission compensation. “In any case, our goal is to improve our operations, not just to compensate,” Janne Nummi declares.