4.2. Waste and Hazardous Materials

Explaining the impact

Managing the impact

As a result of our operational activity, mainly at our agencies and headquarters, we generate paper, plastic/metal and glass waste, used electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), household waste and more.. At national level, we also generate other types of waste, such as tyre waste, waste oil and other types of alternative or related hazardous waste, in the value chain through service activities carried out through partners, which are managed by authorised and specialised disposal and recovery companies, and internally by responsible employees who continuously monitor their generation and traceability. The most paper-intensive activities are still those related to interaction with public institutions (e.g. tax documents, car registrations), but we are confident that these resources will decrease considerably in the coming years with the increasing share of digitisation in this sector as well.

The initiative to digitise the signature of decision-makers, launched in 2021, has been continued in 2022 with the electronic signature of contractual documents and the digitisation of the car handover and acceptance process for operating leases. In conjunction with the optimisation of operational flows, we have managed to reduce paper consumption by more than 10%.

The implementation of our environmental management system, ISO 14001, certified in 2021, ensures that our processes are controlled and comply with applicable legal requirements. Furthermore, in conjunction with our Sustainability Strategy, we have an ongoing programme with clear actions including in the environmental area to help us achieve our objectives. In terms of our national footprint, we are aware of the impact we generate at our sites in terms of the amount of waste generated, as well as the impact resulting from the operation and end of life of related waste (tyres, oils). The selective collection of waste and disposal from sites has been operated, as of 2021, directly by the agents, through local partners, but from 2022 this is predominantly done centrally, with the support of a national partner, which allows us to monitor and centralise the quantities related to each waste category much more accurately and completely.

Since November 2021 we have joined the initiative of the Association CAPACE CU SUFLET which gives a new meaning to the plastic caps collected by volunteers from all over the country, their recovery through authorized collectors and the sponsorships received are materialized in the donation of the collected sums to various social causes. The involvement of our colleagues at national level has resulted in 1.64 tonnes being handed over the course of 2022, equivalent to 900,000 lids.

Effectiveness of actions taken

In 2022, thanks to the partnership with the authorised WEEE collector, ``Ateliere Fara Frontiere``, 0.51 tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment were handed in for recycling, of which 316 kg / 463 products were recycled, thus avoiding, according to their calculations, 13,958 kg CO₂.

In 2022 we scrapped 69.5 tonnes of tyres and sent a further 32.57 tonnes directly to recycling, representing 29.31% of the total 111.13 tonnes of used tyres. The remaining 8.15%, equivalent to 9.06 tonnes of tyres, were recovered through partners or sold directly by end users. The process is continuously monitored by authorised internal staff and tyre scrapping and recycling is carried out by authorised partners, in accordance with the legal rules in force.

At the same time, we have taken 43.66 tonnes of engine oil out of service through our authorised service partners, fully recycled in accordance with the legal regulations in force.

Household waste generated at the locations where Autonom operates is collected by local sanitation companies with which Autonom has management and disposal contracts. A strict record of the amount of waste generated is not available to us because the sanitation companies do not have a correct traceability of the data and cannot provide it to us. They provide collection of household waste quantities from the area of the cities where Autonom has operating sites for different commercial operators under local sanitation contracts..