For the second consecutive year, at Laboratorios ROVI we reached our goal of mitigating our environmental impact and achieved carbon neutrality, thanks to our Environmental Sustainability and Social Policy. But what does being CO2 neutral mean? In simple terms, it means being aware of the footprint we leave on the environment and acting responsibly to do our part in attaining the European Union’s ambitious goal of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

The only way of achieving this milestone is for an increasing number of companies like ours to work with the target of minimising their environmental impact. Carbon neutrality can only be attained if there is a balance between the carbon dioxide emissions generated and the amount of CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere.

For this reason, companies must put into practice strategies that enable them to know the footprint left by their activity accurately and incorporate action plans that allow them to reduce it. At ROVI, we have included this in our “Avoid, reduce and compensate” strategy, which unifies the efforts of the company and its human team to reduce the environmental impact of our activities and protect biodiversity. This strategy focuses on:

1. Avoiding the generation of CO2 emissions as far as possible. For example, by purchasing energy from renewable sources for the electricity supply required by our production plants. Thus, all our plants avoid 100% of the emissions included in Scope 2 of the Carbon Footprint.
2. Reducing consumption of key resources. We have multidisciplinary teams at each plant engaged in monitoring this consumption and fixing specific energy saving targets.
3. Voluntary offsetting of CO2 emissions that it has not been possible to avoid or reduce during the year through national and international projects that promote the use of renewable energies or protect natural environments from deforestation.  

Thanks to this roadmap, at ROVI, we have incorporated the environmental component into our project decision-making. A good example of this is the installation of a thermal oxidiser at our Granada plant in 2020. This is considered the best technological alternative available to ensure compliance with the limits on the emission of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). The project represented a significant investment of 1.1 million euros, with which we ensured a percentage reduction in COV of between 95 and 99% and also a reduction of between 1-4mg/Nm3 in the Total Organic Carbon (TOC). In 2021, we continued with this philosophy and acquired the same equipment for the plant that ROVI is constructing in Escúzar (Granada).

Furthermore, in the last two years, we have installed photovoltaic energy generation stations at the plants in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) and Granada and expect them to reduce electricity consumption in future years.

Lastly, at ROVI we voluntarily offset the carbon dioxide emissions that we have been unable to avoid or reduce. Thus, in 2020, ROVI cooperated in international sustainability initiatives, such as the Madre de Dios Project in Peru to combat Amazon deforestation, or the implementation of sustainable cook stoves in Ghana. This restoration work has offset almost 6,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to avoiding the felling of 35,400 mature trees.

In 2021, ROVI compensated for all the carbon dioxide emissions generated by investing in a wind farm in Gujarat (India) to generate renewable energy to replace the use of fossil fuels.

Furthermore, this year, we have begun to collaborate with reforestation projects in Spain backed by the credits of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO), such as:

• La Burgalesa Project. Planting of native tree species in a deforested area of Aranda de Duero (Burgos) with a high risk of desertification, in order to revitalise the area and improve biodiversity.
• Arzádegos Project. Project to recover forest land in Viladevos (Orense) that was affected by an extensive fire in 2005, in order to regain the tree cover that existed previously.

The foregoing has enabled Laboratorios ROVI to be a 100% carbon neutral company.

For Laboratorios ROVI, care of the environment and social and corporate governance commitment form part of the firm’s values and, therefore, we strive to provide all our stakeholder groups with a transparent image of our environmental policy in order to send out a consistent message.