Sustainability is a commitment made by Atlanta some years ago, and that can be observed throughout the life cycle of its products, from the treatment of waste and residues from soles to the preference for recycled products with low environmental impact. The company adopts the best manufacturing techniques, defining activities to reduce its ecological footprint.

And, given that the journey towards carbon neutrality cannot be stopped, António Meireles, responsible for the company, announced the acquisition of another land to instal photovoltaic panels. The goal is to continue working to achieve carbon neutrality, that is, to produce more energy than the one consumed by the company.

"Sustainability for Atlanta is not just a range of products, it is intrinsic instead, it is a way of being in business, and we always try to be more sustainable”.

We spoke with Paulo Ribeiro, responsible for Atlanta.

From very early on, Atlanta attaches great importance to sustainability, in its various aspects, such as social, economic and environmental/energy sustainability.

Now, focusing a little more on environmental sustainability: it is a commitment that we made a few years ago, and that is evident throughout the life cycle of our products / our soles, from the preference for recycled and low environmental impact products, especially raw materials, to the effort with energy efficiency throughout the plant. We adopt the best manufacturing techniques, defining activities to reduce CO2 emissions, dust, volatile organic compounds and waste.

We proceed with the total recycling of waste from our soles, namely TR, TPU and Rubber, to reintroduce them into the production cycle as raw materials, transforming them into value-added products. We are not talking about grinding waste and reintroducing it into the production process, but recycling itself, in the sense that waste is subjected to physical and mechanical processes to be obtained a material with excellent physical-mechanical properties and quality.

Currently, around 35% of our soles incorporate (total or partially) recycled material. Sustainability for Atlanta is not just a range of products, it is intrinsic instead, it is a way of being in business, and we always try to be more sustainable.

It should be noted that one of our goals is to reduce (as far as possible) waste through product engineering and production optimization, and, to this extent, only increase waste proportionately to the production. In other words, the goal is not to recycle more (because we already do it at 100%), but to reduce waste. There are also several solutions for sustainable products (not only recycled) on the market, which we also use whenever possible.

The future will certainly involve products that are increasingly sustainable in all aspects. And products are more sustainable not only when they are made with sustainable raw materials, but also when they are made using more sustainable processes, with fewer resources and/or more efficiency, less energy and "cleaner” energy, etc.

In the future, we will continue working to develop new products that are more environmentally sustainable, either through the development of new raw materials or through the development of more environmentally efficient processes. There is an increasing global preference for more sustainable products and, of course, our customers are not oblivious to this.

What new products are you developing?
Atlanta has ongoing internal and external projects for the research and development of products or processes.

We currently have some Research and Development Projects underway in the area of sustainability, namely Famest and GreenShoe4All, developed jointly with the CTCP (Portuguese Footwear Technological Centre) and entities of the National Scientific System, such as the University of Minho and FEUP (Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto), among others. These projects aim to obtain new, more ecological, sustainable raw materials through recycling and the use of waste.

We emphasize the development of a raw material – SBR (Rubber) of Vegetable Origin, which is about 84% vegetable. This raw material is already validated for sale and is currently undergoing laboratory certification.

In this area of sustainability, we have been producing soles with recycled materials internally, totally or partially, TR, TPU and Recycled Rubber, as we spoke, soles with the introduction of waste from our industry and others, and soles with biologically-based materials.

We aim to be a Zero Carbon company, which means producing more energy than we consume. To this end, we have already installed a production unit for self-consumption, of 500KW renewable solar energy on the ground with maximum production optimization, about three times more in winter and 24% in summer compared to the same installation on the roof. We are talking about a reduction of more than 360 tons of CO2 per year, that is, capturing CO2 equivalent to 2 238 trees annually.

In the future, we expect to increase the installed energy production capacity to 1500KW. We already have the infrastructure for this purpose, and the installation of units for the storage of surplus energy, as soon as possible. It will be another contribution to greater sustainability and the reduction of our ecological footprint.