Green from A to Z: The Factory Process and Final Product
Creating an environmentally-friendly factory process and final product demands an extraordinary commitment to quality and a little elbow grease. While consumers often think about the sustainability of packaging materials themselves, the process to create these products is just as important.
The goal for a green manufacturing process is no waste, no pollution, and no water contamination.
Powering a Green Factory
Environmentally-conscious factories power their operations through a variety of sustainable energies. As technology improves, tapping into sustainable energies is becoming more and more efficient. Wind, sun, and water are just a few resources that can be utilized to power factories.
Wind Power
By harnessing wind power, factories have an additional sustainable power source. A wind turbine, also known as a wind energy converter, is an enormous fan that converts the wind’s power into electrical energy. This is one of cleanest energies available to us.
Solar Power
Rooftop solar panels take advantage of expansive roofs to collect energy from the sun. This solar energy collection process can work either actively or passively. Active techniques use photovoltaic systems and solar water heating, while passive techniques may include orienting a building to the sun and designing spaces to circulate air.
Water Power
Another great source of natural energy is water. Usually, this energy is gathered through a dam or river where the water travels through a turbine that turns the energy into electricity. Even a small canal can generate electricity.
Steam Power
Steam turbines reportedly generate 88% of the world’s electricity. When steam is placed under pressure, it becomes supercritical fluid that can generate even more electricity. Many power plants use steam turbines to help generate energy.
Waste Not, Want Not
A crucial component of green manufacturing is efficiently using available resources. An environmentally conscious factory develops ways to reduce waste and recycle leftover remnants. This type of creativity and ingenuity defines the sustainable energy movement.
Natural Lighting
Large windows and skylights can take advantage of natural lighting rather than using more energy for artificial lighting. Meanwhile, natural lighting also has a positive influence on workers. This can be an easy way to use available resources.
Waste Reclamation
An often overlooked option for the manufacturing process is considering how “waste” can be reclaimed, recycled, reused. Manufacturing byproducts might be recyclable for another step of the process or shuttled off to another manufacturer for their use. Organic material can be converted into soil while other items might be recycled.
Designing the Final Product
When designers create the ideal product, they should be aware of the manufacturing process, resources needed, and sustainable practices. This will help them provide clients with the best options while also cutting costs and promoting environmentally-friendly processes. Recent technological developments allow products to retain their high quality while simultaneously being eco-friendly.
Product Materials
Another important component to creating a business with products that focus on sustainability is choosing product materials that adhere to being biodegradable.
Golden Arrow uses molded fiber options for creating sustainable packaging. Fibers used are bamboo and bagasse, which are two rapidly renewable resources. For molded fiber production, water is a vital element to the entire process. Golden Arrow protects this resource by creating a closed loop water recycling system. To demonstrate the water’s lack of pollution, Golden Arrow runs the filtered water through Koi fish ponds on the grounds of their factories
For printing, Golden Arrow uses recycled paper products and soy inks. Brilliant color is achieved with Hi-Fi FM multi-color printing techniques.
While most consumers only see the final product, the manufacturing process is a critical part of achieving green practices from A to Z. At Golden Arrow, we do everything in our power to take advantage of renewable power in manufacturing and sustainable resources in our product creation.