Armstrong Takes Steps Toward Sustainability
Reprinted with permission by Three Rivers Commercial News 3/2008 Click Here to read PDF version.
THREE RIVERS, MI -- Armstrong International of Three Rivers makes steam traps, but ultimately they're about saving energy for their customers.
Now, they're doing their own part to save energy and be a sustainable company.
David Armstrong, president and CEO of Armstrong International, Inc., unveiled the company's environmental initiative to a gathering of almost 300 employees during the Three Rivers facility's quarterly meeting Monday.
The "Green Team" has been formed to look at ways the company can be more environmentally friendly. Ideas include returning hot condensate to be reused, installing double-pane windows, installing low-fluorescent lighting (now in place and saving the company $5,000 per month), using gas-fired hot water heaters to heat their buildings, monitoring air quality in the welding area, reducing trash by 10 percent annually, increasing the amount of recycling, eliminating use of Styrofoam cups, reducing storm/sewer water discharge, saving carbon dioxide by replacing travel with videoconferencing. They would like to save 20 percent of the energy they use by 2010 (a potential savings of $120,000 per year).
Armstrong's brand promise has changed to "we provide intelligent system solutions that improve utility performance, lower energy consumption, and reduce environmental emissions .... while providing many enjoyable experiences." And an eighth "S" -- sustainability -- has been added to their strategies (alongside swiftest, simplest, smallest, spirit of intrapreneurship, surprises, storytelling and smiles).
The company would like to look at the resources they take from the earth and live in a way to replenish what they use.
Armstrong said of the 108 year-old manufacturer, "I want to be the best company...to live to be 200, 300, 400 years old." But what good is that, he pointed out, if there's no earth left?
Once environmentally friendly systems are in place in Three Rivers, it will be a model for Armstrong's other plants around the world. And management is already looking ahead to start future plants on the right foot.
The new facility to which Armstrong will be expanding in India -- eight acres have been purchased -- will be a "platinum company," namely it will meet certain criteria as the most environmentally friendly company of the future, built with sustainability in mind.
Reprinted with permission by Three Rivers Commercial News 3/2008 Click Here to read PDF version.
