Environmental Management - Dexco

Dexco has publicly committed to legal compliance and sustainable development through its Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy and management practices. Our principles apply to all of our manufacturing, administrative, and forestry sites and guide our management based on Dexco’s values, which are described by our purpose and organizational culture (Our Way to Be and Do Things), aiming process and control improvements.

The company takes ISO 14001 as a framework to implement its Environmental Management System across its manufacturing sites.

Our forestry operation has been certified for Responsible Forest Management since 1995, ensuring its activities are carried out in an economically feasible, environmental friendly, and socially beneficial way.

Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy

To promote continuous process improvement and strengthen our operations’ controls, Dexco’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy sets the management guidelines for environmental matters and their respective risks and impacts. It aligns with the company’s values, purpose, and organizational culture, reaffirming our commitment to an environmentally-friendly operation.

We manage environmental indicators and set targets for water, energy, waste, and greenhouse gases (GHG), which are periodically monitored and reported.

Dexco’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy is referenced in international and internal standards, with public commitments that guarantee forest management without deforestation, conservation of biodiversity and respect for the legal and customary rights of local and traditional communities.

Still on this subject, through its Human Rights Policy, the Company undertakes to quickly repair and communicate the interested parties, applying disciplinary measures, when applicable, and promoting improvement in its processes and conducts, whenever necessary.

Applicable to all of our manufacturing, administrative, and forestry sites, our Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy sets the following principles:

Rational, sustainable use of raw materials and supplies necessary in our production;
Develop and offer products that enable the rational use of natural resources;
Prevent pollution and environmental risks in our operations, from production to distribution, with technical, innovative solutions, mitigating their negative impacts;
Comply with laws that apply to our activities, products, and services, fulfill voluntary commitments undertaken by the company and set procedures to ensure unlawfully-sourced materials are not used;
Protect the biodiversity, water sources, and water courses, and preserve farmed soils, measures that are inherent to managing planted forests, with the purpose of maintaining and/or improving ecosystem services and environmental values;
Manage waste in accordance with reduction, recycling, and reuse concepts;
Assess the companies’ environmental performance in case of mergers and acquisitions;
Work to mitigate greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and adopt adapting mechanisms to tackle the impacts of climate change.

Compliance with NBR ISO 14001 – Environmental Management System

ISO 14001, the international standard that sets the requirements to structure an Environmental Management System, provided the framework for Dexco’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy. It encompasses environmental management control actions and measures.

Read our Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Policy

Additionally, we have adopted important initiatives over the past few years, like:

Replacing of coal with natural gas in Ceramic Tiles operations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions;
Zero Landfill at the São Paulo Metals, Itapetininga Panels, and Tiles units;
Reusing metal scraps in the production process of our bathroom fixtures manufacturing sites, and plastics at Hydra and at Metals as well;
Reusing of broken sanitaryware (pitcher), ceramic sludge, and glazing in our Sanitaryware manufacturing sites, and ceramic mass in our ceramic tiles production;
Using internal compost of ashes, sludge from Sewage Treatment Plants, and food waste in our wooden panel manufacturing sites as fertilizers in our forests;
Changing our energy mix, replacing BFO oil and natural gas for biomass, used to produce thermal energy in our wooden panel manufacturing sites and;
Reusing heat from our ovens to warm up ceramic pieces in our Fixture manufacturing sites.

Commitment to Biodiversity

We recognize the importance of forests and other natural ecosystems and are committed to ensuring responsible forest management in the areas where we operate, as long as our business can impact these environments. For this, we signed the Dexco’ Commitment to Biodiversity, where we highlight:

Zero deforestation or conversion of natural ecosystems in forest management activities;
The non-use of wood that has been illegally exploited or in violation of traditional and/or civil rights, taken from areas of high conservation value (HCVAs) threatened by management activities or areas of deforestation of natural forests;
With 97% of forest areas in Brazil certified by standards of excellence in forest management, we guarantee that the wood used as raw material in our production processes comes from certified forests or other controlled sources and;
As part of this Commitment, we have no industrial or forestry operations on peatland in Brazil or Colombia.

Click here to access the full document.

Through its document “Biodiversity: Management and Indicators”, Dexco compiles the Company’s main actions and results for biodiversity management. Below are the latest documents relating to the topic:

Biodiversity: Management and Indicators 2023

Biodiversity: Management and Indicators 2024

Assessment of Biodiversity Impacts: Industrial Operations 2024*

*Documents available only in Portuguese