Prusa Research released its first sustainability report earlier this month, outlining both its achievements and future goals for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. The report sets the company’s sustainability strategy, which was developed based on internal surveys, supplier interviews, consults with experts, and feedback from the 3D printing community itself. Prusa says these conversations helped it identify several areas on which it could focus, such as helping users recycle printing materials.
The result is a comprehensive, three-pillared approach that sees Prusa targeting social issues, relations with employees, suppliers, customers, and environmental impact. Each cornerstone of this strategy receives its own section within the public report, providing an overview of the company’s ESG efforts in that specific area.
The purpose of such an approach, Prusa says, is “not to say that we excel in every aspect of the sustainability topic and that everything we do is the best thing to do”, but to provide transparency on the company’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas in which it is taking its first steps – culminating a year-in-the-making effort to show consumers that Prusa takes sustainability seriously.
In the social issues section (p. 12-25), Prusa points to sustainability-focused contests and Printables brand profiles that allow companies to easily provide replacement or spare parts to customers. The section also highlights notable case studies from the past two years in which companies used 3D printing to achieve more efficient workflows and operate in more environmentally friendly ways.
There’s also a look at Prusa Education, Prusalab, and other community support and development programs that leverage 3D printing in ways that benefit humanitarian and social causes such as the war in Ukraine, non-profit organizations, and schools. There’s also a look ahead at future projects and planned collaborations, including a commitment to emphasizing “the environmental benefits of the solution” when designing products in its accelerator program.
Prusa also examines fair relations in a holistic approach that encompasses everything from inclusivity to workplace safety to quality control – with quite a few stops in between (p. 42-57). Here, Prusa showcases its reduction in workplace accidents in the past year, a new monitoring system for employees working alone, and reinforces its commitment to repairability, with the goal of keeping warranty claim rates below 0.5% – which it achieved in 2022. It also states its intent to create an increased number of product passports that demonstrate circularity and sustainability.
Avoiding greenwashing is a hot topic, with Prusa removing the “100% recyclable” claim from its spools of PLA filament, after an investigation revealed that the material often ends up in landfills or incinerators “due to the lack of a collection and recycling infrastructure”.
The most revealing aspect of the report is perhaps Prusa’s dive into its own environmental impact (p. 26-41), if only because the statistics here are more concrete. By calculating its carbon footprint, Prusa was able to identify purchased supplies, tangible assets investments, product transport, and electrical consumption and heating as areas that cause the company’s largest environmental impact.
With that information, Prusa has laid out nascent plans for all-around improvement. By taking steps to create more efficient packaging, for example, the company believes it can reduce its cardboard usage by 940 kg per year. Prusa has also made shipping services available from DHL GoGreen, which allows buyers to “”choose to have the carbon footprint of their shipment offset by investing in a project that reduces or prevents CO2 emissions elsewhere” in an effort to mitigate its transport-caused impact. A 7% increase in energy consumption between 2021-2022, meanwhile, is attributed to the newly localized production of certain components. To combat this, Prusa has installed new LED lighting that it says will “bring an 8% reduction in electricity consumption, returning the investment made within 9 months”.
It has also installed faucet aerators to reduce water consumption, and has worked to minimize waste in several ways, one of which – changing the manufacturing process of plastic parts – has resulted in a 7% decrease in waste production. Additionally, Prusa spotlights its recycled PLA and PETG filaments, which are 100% made from its production waste, as well as its reusable, side-less spools of Prusament Refill.
The subject of recycling as a whole is hit on quite profoundly in the carbon footprint section, with Prusa understanding that it’s an area of concern for many of its users (31.7%, to be exact, based on the feedback from customer surveys). As such, Prusa says it aims to “increase the sales of filaments considered as more sustainable” and “develop and introduce new, more-sustainable Prusament products”.
In all, Prusa’s sustainability report is an admirable attempt at overall operational improvement and transparency. Scattered throughout are several lofty (and sometimes vague) promises and ambitions, especially in the social and fair relations sections – although this is not necessarily a bad thing; should those goals be realized, the vagaries will solidify, and the world be better off for it. And, of course, none of this should discount the large, data-backed strides the company has already taken toward becoming more sustainable in the past couple of years.
Also to Prusa’s credit is its open call for user engagement and feedback. The sustainability report, it says, is a “first attempt to summarize what we have accomplished in recent years”, and should anyone find anything misleading, incorrect, or otherwise have questions or comments, to get in touch at sustainability@prusa3d.cz.
For more information, check out Prusa’s blog post on the report – or simply download the report itself to dive into the details, of which there are many.
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