KIVO is fully engaged in sustainable business. We opened two recycling plants in 1.5 years, one in Volendam and one in Kosovo under the name REKS, a partnership with KRAS Recycling. REKS enables fully circular plastic production. Our factory sites and office premises in Volendam and Zwolle have also been fitted with solar panels.
In addition, we have applied thickness reduction, that is, thinner plastic films while maintaining the same quality ánd we add -with the arrival of our recycling plants- a lot of regenerate (recycled material) in our films. This ensures that no new oil needs to be tapped to produce new plastics.
Director Robert Kwakman: "Our sustainability agenda is and will remain well-stocked. But we also wanted to do something for our employees in terms of sustainability. This has resulted in the KIVO Solar Panels Plan. We offer solar panels as fringe benefits."
Together with Smit Elektrotechniek, the party supplying the solar panels, we created a plan in which we offered our employees the opportunity to purchase solar panels at a reduced rate. Kwakman: "Our employees enjoyed a nice discount on the one hand, while KIVO also offered the opportunity to pre-finance the panels and pay this off via salary within a set period of a number of years.
Many employees were immediately enthusiastic, but there were also quite a few questions. After a drop-in session in which everything was carefully explained by Smit Elektrotechniek and where the financial possibilities were also explained by KIVO itself, almost 50 employees proceeded to purchase.
Kwakman: "All employees who have solar panels also received an app on their phone from Smit in which they can monitor the yield. On the shop floor, this already provides regular topics of conversation. The moment some sunbeams are visible, they immediately check whose solar panels are the most profitable. It is nice that as an employer we can do our bit for a greener world this way and that we can also offer our employees a benefit."
