Sustainability of Gavazzi and Enersem in Germany

An innovative project linked to sustainability and the reduction of emissions in the company to recycle and make production processes greener. The initiative was promoted - and presented at the Greentech Festival in Berlin and at the Techtextil fair in Frankfurt - by Gavazzi Tessuti Tecnici of Calolziocorte in collaboration with Enersen, a start-up spin-off of the Politecnico di Milano.

With the correct energy efficiency measures, a large company can save 25% of the gas used and reduce liquid waste by up to 70% during production processes. An important news in these times of international crisis, expensive energy and scarcity of water, Enersem and Gavazzi speciefied in a press talking about their international study on energy efficiency and circular economy.

The project carried out by Enersem together with the historic textile company show that in terms of sustainability, Italy can have its say in front of an important audience. At the Greentech Festival in Berlin, which saw the presence of the international star Billie Eilish and the German Minister of Finance Christian Lindner among the guests expected at the Greentech Festival in Berlin, between 22 and 24 June 2022, took the chair also Enersem that with its CEO and founder Matteo Zanchi illustrated its collaboration with Gavazzi Tessuti Tecnici from the stage dedicated to start-ups.

In concrete terms, Enersem's activity at Gavazzi has led to a reduction of wastewater by 70% and gas consumption by 25%, with a view to circular economy and energy efficiency that looks to the present, because for the future there is no it's more time. The process developed by Enersem engineers and Gavazzi production managers has an abitious goal, which has already reached some of its steps and which also continues in directions not initially foreseen.

The purpose is to innovate the production of the technical textile sector - Enersem and Gavazzi also know - by developing solutions capable of significantly reducing the environmental impact, in terms of lower energy consumption (thanks to thermal recovery and optimal regulation of ovens), less waste production (thanks to the recovery of resins) and reuse of process water (thanks to an accurate liquid recovery process.

And it is with this concrete and concretized commitment that in these same days gavazzi presented itself at Techtextil in Frankfurt, one of the most important trade fairs in the world for textiles. A biennal event that, due to Covid-19, has postponed the 2021 edition to today.

It all started in 2018, when Gavazzi had to carry out the Energy Diagnosis for the Calolziocorte plant and relied on Enersem. After this first positive collaboration, Enersem proposed to its turn to Gavazzi to partecipate in a contest from the Lombardy Region which finances research and innovation in the manufacturing industry. Thanks to this project, some interesting, complex and interrelated interventions have been identified.

Gavazzi intended to reduce the environmental impact of the technical textile production process in the various factories of the company, specifically that of Arcore. The request arose from the need to improve the environmental profile, to further increase the company's competitiveness on the market, in particular in the segments most sensitive to environmental issues, such as international customers of construction products and the wind sector.

The proposal was therefore part of a broader path of environmental sustainability, which over the years has seen the implementation of various energy efficiency interventions and the introduction of renewable sources for energy - photovoltaic and solar thermal systems in the Calolziocorte plant - and the recent start of a process that will lead to environmental certification.