Situation

The site is located in the municipal districts of Batilly and Saint-Ail-en-Lorraine, in the northern part of the Meurthe-et-Moselle département (eastern France) at an altitude of 265 m. It is in a designated development area, in the industrial zone of Batilly.  The main geographical features are strong coastal relief and a succession of limestone and marl strata.  The plant is not concerned by mining operations.  It is close to a water table located at a depth of 50m.  Drinking water is taken from the Paradis mine at 1,800m.  The Anneau stream runs east of the site and flows into the Orne, a river of mediocre quality.  No natural areas of special ecological interest (ZNIEFF) exist in the municipal districts of Batilly and Saint-Ail and no other industrial activities are based around the plant.

Initial certification obtained in 1999.

The site renewed its certification in 2002 and 2005.

Download :

- Environmental Declaration 2008

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Water consumption

Factory water consumption follows production, as shown by the increase in consumption that occurred between 1998 and 2000. However, the Batilly plant has practically halved its water consumption per vehicle since 2000. That makes SOVAB one of the Renault Group’s best-performing sites.

This result was achieved through rigorous monitoring of the meters in the buildings and water-saving efforts across all sectors (especially in the surface treatment process, where ultrafiltration modules now make it possible to reuse wastewater as rinsing water after it has been de-oiled).

 

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Water-borne effluents

With 3,000 people working on the site, as well as degreasing and vehicle painting activities, SOVAB generates wastewater, which must be treated. Before 2004, some of that wastewater was piped to the treatment plant in Batilly.

But since the end of 2004, the site has treated all its own wastewater, using advanced physical/chemical and biological processes. The new biological treatment plant with ultrafiltration modules has cut suspended solid (SS) emissions to water by three.

Similarly, organic matter (OM) has been halved since 2000 as a result of:

• numerous process improvements, 

• setting up of special treatments (biological pre-treatment of paint booth water),

• changes to the products used in the process, especially the switch to lead-free electrocoating and paint in 2004.  
  

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SO2 and greenhouse gas emissions

SOVAB needs to heat the offices, workshops as well as some facilities and processes. The only fuel it uses is natural gas, with close monitoring of consumption. The site has thus reduced its atmospheric emissions of SO2 and CO2.

Furthermore, all the large boilers on the site (the boilers in the central boiler plant and the surface treatment boiler) are fitted with low-NOx burners.

All these actions helped reduce the site’s impact on the atmosphere by reducing its GHG emissions.

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Volatile organic compounds emissions from paint process

The plant has developed an emissions reduction plan on Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), which reduced emissions by 15% between 1998 and 2001. In 2002 and 2003, new processes to ensure the manufacturer's six-year anti-corrosion warranty and the use of new colour tints resulted in an increase in VOC emissions. Actions carried out since 2004 have reduced VOC emissions per vehicle by more than 5%:

• use of efficient technology (such as incinerators to burn VOCs),
• optimized use of solvents (circuit rinsing, cleaning solvent),
• recovery and regeneration of used solvents,
• increase in the application efficiency of painting robots,
• increase in the size of colour test batches, etc.

As a result of all these effective actions, which use the best available technology, VOC emissions are 40% below regulatory limits.

 

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Waste

SOVAB generates a variable volume of waste, depending on its output. To reduce its environmental impact, the site sorts waste at source. Through sorting,

- each item of waste is channelled to the appropriate type of treatment, and the necessary precautions are taken.
- landfill waste is reduced because it does not include recyclable waste.
- some recovered waste can be reused as raw materials (e.g. copper, some plastics and polystyrene): that means all the fewer natural resources that are used.

Thanks to the involvement of all the employees and service providers working on the site, as a result of awareness-raising and training for all staff, and constant efforts to seek new recycling options, 86% of OIW(1) was recycled in 2007.

A programme to separate paper at source has been implemented with success throughout the plant.  Special waste units have been installed in each building, and each employee makes a contribution by collecting paper in a dedicated recyclable bag.  These day-to-day efforts have reduced the quantities of OIW sent to landfill.

SOVAB also regularly implements waste-reduction actions, and since 2000, it has cut both HIW(2) and packaging waste per vehicle by 30%.

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Energy

Energy is one of the priority issues for the plant and is discussed by a dedicated working group that involves the different sectors of the plant. On-site energy expenditure has gradually been reduced by monitoring of heating and lighting of buildings, reduced operating hours, lower temperatures and humidity in the paint booths and a drive to detect and repair compressed air leaks. The energy consumed to produce a vehicle fell by almost 20% between 2001 and 2007.

Once again, it is the involvement of the whole workforce that made this excellent result possible and everyone at his or her level contributed to achieving the targets: now every person on the SOVAB site turns off the lights and closes the workshop doors at the end of their shift, and computers are switched off at weekends.

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Highlights

 

Like every year since our environmental management system was introduced, 2007 brought new challenges. The plant pursued its investment programme to reduce environmental impacts (optimization of the effluent treatment process, removal of the last PCB capacitors, etc.). The site also worked to improve its local management.

• by participating in World Environment Day (conference on ECO2, exhibition with support from the site’s service providers, drawing competition, free access to pollution inspection reports, organic food, etc.),

• by optimizing our best practices (management of waste, chemicals and effluents; improving training for management personnel, etc.).

But, above all, 2007 marked the start of preparations for the programme launch, at end-2009, of the vehicle that will replace Master and Mascott, which the site currently manufactures.

The vehicle is a new opportunity to pursue our continuous progress efforts to reduce our environmental impacts:

• through major investments (e.g. €100,000 to replace an incinerator in the paint workshop)

• and by improving our environmental practices (together with our service providers and on management of waste from building work, etc.).