Climate protection in professional training

IGP apprentices combat climate change

IGP Powder Coatings has launched a Company Challenge with myclimate. Sustainability has been at the core of our company’s DNA for decades. Our apprentices are now developing ideas on how we can all improve our efforts to protect the environment and mitigate climate change.

It all started with the idea of giving our customers something more sustainable for Christmas than a bottle of wine – or any other gift that is either quickly consumed, forgotten, or simply disappears at the back of a cupboard. This notion snowballed into a project that will benefit many more people than any Christmas present – a Company Challenge in partnership with the myclimate foundation. All 15 of our second and third-year apprentices are taking part in this initiative. In teams of three, they are tasked with developing projects to increase IGP Powder Coatings’ contribution to environmental protection and mitigating climate change.

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Projects

Team 1

Less acetone, more help for the environment!

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Team 2

Machines also need a coffee break!

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Team 3

No more wasted paper!

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Team 4

Every drop counts

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Team 5

Zero-carbon mobility at the point of use!

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Teams

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Team 5

News

A progress report from Team 1

Team 1

3. February 2022

Since the last project day and the interim presentations, our team has continued working on our ideas and begun carrying out practical experiments in the lab. The aim of these experiments was to find a new way to efficiently clean our machines using little or no acetone. We had various ideas for solutions to this. Unfortunately, we had some trouble with our idea, but we have now gathered a lot of information and are back on track. The first tests have been carried out; some unsuccessful, some successful. This has enabled us to rule out some of our ideas and we are now making progress. Our next goal will be to find out if it is possible to mix the acetone with water. This will ensure fairly rapid evaporation. We are considering trying the whole process with just the mill for now, as the extruder is heated to 100°C.

A progress report from Team 2

Team 2

3. February 2022

Over the last few weeks our team has been identifying areas where IGP has the greatest potential to save energy or electricity. We are currently working on a poster that we have created ourselves to raise employee awareness of this issue. In addition, we are putting together a PowerPoint. We still have some unanswered questions and are waiting for a colleague to email us the answers. It’s great to see our project taking shape. We are working very well as a team and really enjoying the collaboration. We are confident that our machines will also be allowed to take “coffee breaks” in the future, thus saving energy.

A progress report from Team 3

Team 3

3. February 2022

Our team had set itself the goal of digitizing the formulas documented on paper that are used in our laboratory. Over the last few weeks we have worked hard on our project and are already nearing our goal. However, we also encountered some difficulties as it wasn’t initially clear to us why using tablets wouldn’t work. After a long discussion with IT, this was explained to us and we now understand the situation. We subsequently developed three alternative solutions, which we are now pursuing. It’s fun to work as a group because we are a great team and are good at allocating the various tasks.