Water & waste

As a manufacturer of packaging equipment, BOBST uses water and raw materials (metals, paper and plastic) in its operations. Its industrial and service activities have a direct impact on water resources and generate waste. To limit its environmental footprint, the Group is working to reduce the quantity of its waste, to improve recycling (currently reaching 75%) and to limit its water consumption.

The activities of the Bobst Group generate several types of waste that are subject to recycling. These are mainly metal residues linked to machining operations, but also paper and cardboard, and plastics used for packaging and transport of machines as well as for shipping spare parts to the Group’s customers throughout the world.

Common industrial waste

Depending on the country where the Group operates, local waste management systems dispose of the waste through two different methods: landfilling, and incineration.

Special waste

The construction of packaging machines requires the use of lubricants or coolants (oils or emulsions) as well as chemicals (paints, varnishes, inks, cleaning and degreasing solutions). All residues of these industrial substances are collected separately and treated by specialized companies.

Organic waste

At all BOBST production sites, the packaging of components, modules and machines contains wood that the Group’s sites must eliminate. Two ways are used: recycling or thermal recovery depending on the country.

In accordance with the Charter of Bobst Group policy with regard to health, safety at work and environmental protection (see https:// investors.bobst.com/fileadmin/user_upload/About_us/Documents/ EHS_Policy_2020_EN.pdf), all BOBST production sites have a waste sorting concept that complies with the requirements of the countries where they operate and with the capacities of local recycling channels. The treatment of a part of the waste also has an economic interest, such as the recycling of metals whose resale offers a source of profit.

The Group has set up an annual monitoring of the quantities of waste treated (see table on page 26), and this will be part of local sites’ objective settings.

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* Data on the quantity of waste is provided by the specialized companies mandated by BOBST for its treatment or recycling. These data are compiled at the various sites before being consolidated at Group level. As regards the service entities, most of them operate in rented commercial premises, the volume of waste from which remains unknown, since its disposal is included in the rental price. However, as their waste is typical of office activities, no extrapolation has been made.

Water consumption related to BOBST activities

The Group’s organization is based on two business units: the Business Unit Printing & Converting (BUPC), which is responsible for the manufacture of packaging machines, and the Business Unit Services & Performance (BUSP), which is in charge of services and of machine overhauling provided to customers. Taken as a whole, BOBST’s operational activities have a limited impact on water resources. Its consumption within the Group mainly concerns three activities:

Industrial use

– Preparation of emulsions circulating in closed circuit in its machining centers;

– Degreasing of parts in open or closed circuit installations depending on their size and type;

– Aqueous baths in a closed circuit in the paint line at the Mex site (Switzerland) for surface preparation (16 m3), whose water is replaced once a year on average.

Watering, sanitary facilities and cleaning

For the rest, water consumption is limited to the use of sanitary facilities, cleaning of the premises and watering of the outdoor facilities. At the Mex site, the vegetable garden where employees buy organic vegetables is equipped with a drip irrigation system that is taken into account in the site’s water consumption.

Water quality and management

Present in more than 50 countries around the world, the Bobst Group uses water of variable quality. For example, in Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam), mineral water is preferred as drinking water. To prevent any risk to the health of its employees, the water supplied by the local services is only used in the sanitary facilities and for cleaning.

Sustainability report 2022

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As for waste, BOBST relies on its Charter policy with regard to health, safety at work and environmental protection (see https://investors. bobst.com/fileadmin/user_upload/About_us/Documents/EHS_ Policy_2020_EN.pdf) to limit its impact on water resources.

(1) The premises occupied by the services entities are rented. For four of the Group’s 19 entities, the owners are not able to provide the water consumption related to the surfaces in question. In these cases, the data has been extrapolated by calculating the average annual consumption per person on the sites where consumption is known. The value obtained was multiplied by the number of employees at the four sites where water consumption is not known. For the production sites, which are owned by BOBST, the local water authorities provide the consumption data.

(2) Carried out on the basis of data provided by the “Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas” (https://www.wri.org).

(3) Surface water: water that occurs naturally on the earth’s surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, icebergs, bogs, pounds, lakes, rivers and, streams.

(4) Groundwater: water that is being held in, and that can be recovered from, an uderground formation.

Several Group sites are equipped with water consumption reduction devices: waterless urinals – Bobst Mex SA (Switzerland) – rainwater recovery systems – Bobst Lyon (France), Bobst India (India), Bobst Mex SA (Switzerland), Bobst Italia (Italy) – as well as push-button or motion detection taps. A monitoring system for water consumption is in place at the production sites, allowing the manual detection of cases of over-consumption.

Sustainability report 2022

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For the first time, BOBST is sharing data on the Group’s water consumption, according to the requirements of GRI303 for thirty local Group entities (production and services). In the past, only the water consumption of local production entities was taken into account. However, the latter represents 95% of the Group’s total consumption. Taking data from the past five years, the evolution of water consumption at production sites is changing as follows:

In the future, an annual comparison will be set up for all local entities (production and services).

Sustainability report 2022

> Strategy

>Operations reporting

> Equipment reporting

> Packaging use & end-of-life reporting

> TCFD

> GRI index

Sustainability report 2022

> Strategy

>Operations reporting

> Equipment reporting

> Packaging use & end-of-life reporting

> TCFD > GRI index

(1) The analysis of water stress, which characterizes a situation of water scarcity or a demand for water that exceeds available resources, was carried out on the basis of data provided by the “Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas” (https://www.wri.org). The latter defines water stress as follows: a measure of the ratio between total water withdrawals and the renewable reserves of surface and groundwater available. Water withdrawals include domestic, industrial, agricultural (irrigation) and animal husbandry uses with or without consumption. Available renewable water reserves take into account the impact of upstream water users and large dams on downstream water availability. Higher values indicate greater competition among users. Source: WRI Aqueduct 2019.

BOBST conducted a water stress assessment of each of its local entities. Areas that are rated as “high” or “extremely high” in the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas were included in the “water-stressed areas” category. Eleven of the thirty sites evaluated are in a “high” or “extremely high” water stress area.

(2) Legend:

BAM: Bobst Africa & Middle East Ltd, Tunis, Tunisia.

BCL: Bobst (Changzhou) Ltd, Changzhou, China.

BES: Bobst Iberica S.L., Barcelona, Spain.

BFL: Bobst Firenze srl, Capalle-Campi Bisenzio, Italy.

BIN: Bobst India Private Ltd, Pune, India.

BIS: Bobst Istanbul Packaging JSC, Istanbul, Turkey.

BLN: Bobst Latino América Norte SA de CV, Mexico D.F., Mexico.

BNA: Bobst North America Inc, Roseland, USA.

BPL: Bobst Polska Sp. Z o.o., Łódź, Poland.

BSL: Bobst (Shanghai) Ltd, Shanghai, China.

FKG: Bobst Bielefeld GmbH, Bielefeld, Germany.