Appliances that don’t compromise on the environment

As a Switzerland’s  leading brand in household appliances, V-ZUG views sustainability as being as important as innovation, durability and reliability when it comes to its future competitive edge. It has adopted Outokumpu Circle Green® towards zero-emissions stainless steel as the latest step in its ambitious sustainability strategy.

“We see sustainability as a necessity and although few of today’s consumers know how to choose the most sustainable appliance, that’s changing. Architects and developers are leading the way. They’re already well educated about sustainability and they want to specify domestic appliances with the lowest possible energy consumption and carbon footprint,” says Marcel Niederberger, V-ZUG’s Head of Sustainability. 

To meet this growing demand, the Swiss manufacturer has taken steps to reduce its machines’ energy and water consumption. For example, its AdoraDish V6000 dishwasher has an in-built heat pump that recovers energy from wastewater to save 30 percent energy compared with conventional dishwashers. Meanwhile, it reuses water from rinsing at the start of its next cycle to save the energy and natural resources needed for water treatment.

“We have also achieved carbon neutrality across our production sites by decarbonising heating systems and logistic fleets, switching to renewable energy and offsetting the residual emissions with an own afforestation project V-Forest,” adds Niederberger. “It’s relatively straightforward for us to take action in these areas as we have complete control over our manufacturing sites. 

“The next challenge is  the CO2 emissions embedded in the raw materials we source, especially metals such as stainless steels. A significant amount of energy is used to extract, process and deliver metals to our factory gates and we need to account for that when we’re calculating the total carbon footprint of our products.”

Slashing carbon footprint

As a long-time customer and partner of Outokumpu, V-ZUG was the first appliance manufacturer to react when we launched our Circle Green product line of towards-zero stainless steels. 

From a metallurgical point of view, Circle Green stainless steels are identical to existing products on the market. That means they have the same performance during life and the same mechanical behavior during production. The only difference is that Circle Green production uses tight control to minimize emissions at every stage of the value chain, through sourcing, manufacturing, processing and logistics. The resulting carbon footprint is as much as 93 percent lower than the global average. 

V-ZUG seized the opportunity to cut the environmental impact of its products without having to make other changes in design and production. 

Having started discussions about the product line in early 2023, V-ZUG identified an opportunity to introduce Circle Green stainless steel into the Adora dishwasher and received its first shipment in June, with the first appliances being delivered to customers in September 2023. Circle Green is now being used as the standard material for key components inside the machine’s main compartment. 

As Outokumpu add more products to the range, there will be new opportunities to potentially upgrade the material in other components on a like for like basis in appliances such as tumble dryers,  washing machines and steam ovens. 

Funding green initiatives

“In the future, we can see that all stainless steel production will become more like Circle Green. But today, its carbon footprint is significantly better than anything else on the market. This gives us the opportunity to stand out from other manufacturers and create a competitive advantage.

“However, this material comes at a price premium, which can create a challenge. This challenge we have overcome proactively by providing additional funding from our internal CO2 fund. We have overcome their price reservations by providing additional funding from our internal CO2 fund.

“Annually we pay into this fund based on the still existing but continuously reducing emissions on Scope 1 and 2 at our production facility. It’s steering tool that enables us to pay for CO2 reduction and avoidance projects that make sense ecologically but not yet economically. Adopting Circle Green is one of those – and by buying it, we’re creating demand that will ultimately lead to Circle Green becoming the standard product.” 

Find out more about V-ZUG