Our sustainability commitments
Putting people and our planet first
Sustainability is built into our circular services. By recycling our activated carbon, we reduce the CO2 footprint of our purification solutions. Our ISO 14001 certification further confirms that our business practices are kind to the environment. Besides caring about the planet, we also value our workforce and respect our local community. Finally, as demonstrated by our ISO 9001 certification, Desotec ensures high-quality services and products for its customers while continuously improving our organisation and working environment.
Purification made simple
Our water/air filtration-as-a-service business model also includes waste management, thus providing our customers with a hassle-free, all-in-one purification solution. Leveraging our expertise, we engage with our customers to fully understand and satisfy their needs. By establishing a close collaboration, we help them run a business that respects the environment and their local community. Together, we make a positive impact on our planet.
Closed loop
Conserving our planet’s precious natural resources is key to a greener future. Reactivating saturated carbon reduces the amount of virgin raw materials needed for filtration, closing the loop and improving sustainability. We also neutralise the adsorbed components and recover them where possible. Desotec already reactivates most spent carbon, and we are developing technology to move towards 100% circularity.
Sustainable Development Goals
Our compass
We adopted five UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as our guiding principles. By focusing on these objectives, we can effectively drive positive change within our company while also supporting our customers' sustainability targets.
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Water filtration is one of our key services. This implies safer drinking water for more people and the reuse of purified industrial wastewater to counter water scarcity.
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We help purify biogas and biomethane to generate green energy. In Roeselare (Belgium), we have solar panels and use the steam recovered from our reactivation processes to heat some buildings. In Parker (AZ, USA), we tap into hydropower for running our plant & processes.
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Continuous monitoring of our reactivation furnaces ensures no pollutants enter the environment. We have developed renewable activated carbon to reduce their climate impact. Desotec already reactivates most spent carbon, and we are developing technology to move towards 100% circularity.
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Aside from a circular business model, our digital mindset helps us minimise our carbon footprint. In addition, we replaced employees’ disposable water bottles with personalised reusable ones.
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Reactivating carbon is more climate-friendly than using a new one. Also, we deliver and take back filters in one trip, thus minimising our transport-related GHG emissions. We have introduced company bikes, offer bike lease to our employees, and are transitioning our fleet to zero-emission vehicles.
Our key achievements
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Driving down carbon emissions
Our business cuts as much CO₂ emissions as those produced by almost 200,000 passenger cars per year
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Saving energy at full steam
By recovering steam from our processes and use it for heating, we save 1,400 KWH – enough energy for 40 households
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Our renewable efforts
We installed 1,300 solar panels on the roof of our Belgian premises
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Champions of water purification
Our filters purify close to 325 Olympic swimming pools of industrial wastewater every day
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Our air purification is flying high
Each of our large air filters purifies the equivalent of 25 hot air balloons every hour and we have hundreds at customers’ sites
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Fueling fossil-free fuels
Our filters allow producing enough biogas/biomethane to provide energy for approximately 2,000,000 households
Our accreditations
Our goal is to excel in everything we do.
We are ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 certified. This shows that our services meet the highest quality and environmental standards.
If you would like more information regarding our policy statement, please contact us at info@desotec.com.
Our Community
We are one
We are proud to call the beautiful city of Roeselare (Belgium) our home. With its trading roots, historic landmarks, beautiful nature and wonderful people (some of them our colleagues), it is a special place. That is why we strive to be the best neighbour we can be. We conduct our business in an ethical, responsible and clean way, making sure all contaminants we remove for our customers are neutralized and nothing leaves our facility.
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Pink Ribbon's Pink Walk
At Desotec, we appreciate the importance of physical exercise in maintaining good health and work-life balance. We also support important causes such as the fight against breast cancer. To combine the useful with the enjoyable, a group of people from Desotec took part in the Pink Ribbon's Pink Walk in May. This challenge invites people to walk more throughout the month, to raise awareness and funds for the fight against breast cancer. What a great opportunity for team building in support of a great cause!
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Warmathon
Our Desotec team not only strive for a brighter world during working hours but also after that. The “Warmathon”, an initiative by Belgian charity “De Warmste Week”, is a yearly event on the Desotec calendar. On this day, a group of Desotec people put on their running shoes and Desotec-branded T-shirt to run several miles together to support a charity of their choice.
“Besides supporting a good cause, it's also a very fun event, which results in great memories”, according to sporty Sarah.