Our activities impact the environment both directly and indirectly. We therefore want to make every effort to position ourselves as an environmentally friendly company within our business activities – a company that keeps its negative impact on the environment to an absolute minimum. The protection of the environment has high priority in all our business activities. Nevertheless, the storage and transportation of petroleum products and chemicals carry a risk of spillage. It is our responsibility to reduce this risk significantly by implementing preventive safety measures. In addition, our sites use energy, water, various raw materials and building materials, and generate airborne emissions, waste and wastewater.
We are committed to minimizing our environmental footprint. Environmental issues are therefore an integral part of the HSSE management system across our group of companies. According to the HSSE Policy, we are committed to making efficient use of energy and resources, and promoting the environmental awareness of employees in order to minimize harmful effects. To detect potential energy savings and take measures to improve energy efficiency, local activities on our tank terminals are aligned with our detailed Energy Saving Guideline. In order to evaluate our impact on climate change, our holding company Pontis Logistic GmbH calculates the carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint for the entire group. Some of our subsidiaries have introduced climate protection initiatives option for customers who are willing to contribute to the protection of the environment through carbon capture.
As a preventive measure in lines with our HSSE management we furthermore monitor the groundwater quality on our tank terminals on a regular basis. The obtained data is evaluated centrally by our environmental experts.Next to our efforts on preventing environmental damage; we focus on a purposive quick response to emergency situations. As a responsible company, our holding company Pontis Logistic GmbH decided to become a shareholder of Oil Spill Response – the world's largest organization for spill response – to be well prepared for emergency situations.
In addition to the development of energy saving programs, our target is to reduce our energy consumption by increasing our employees' awareness as well as improving processes and facilities. Pontis Logistic GmbH uses direct and indirect energy sources in its offices, and to operate facilities, sites, vessels, and vehicles. Direct energy consumption includes natural gas, heating oil and fuel for the operation of our pumps, boilers, owned bunker ships, operational vehicles, and road tankers. Indirect energy – mainly electricity – is used among other things for product pumps, lighting at our tank terminals, for the hydrant systems at our aviation fuelling sites and last, but not least, the computers in our offices worldwide. Other indirect sources of energy that we use include district heating and, to a lesser extent, imported steam..