Policies for pollution (E2-1)
Our approach to pollution management is guided by expectations from key stakeholders, regulatory authorities, industry partners, and environmental best praxis and developed with the purpose of protecting people and planet from hazardous substances.
Epiroc’s Sustainability Policy articulates that our products and services are developed to meet sustainability requirements. We use a lifecycle perspective to address and minimize the negative environmental effects that our products and services may have when developed, distributed and used, as well as during end-of-life treatment. In practice, this means that consideration should be given to SOC and SVHC as they impact products’ reusability and recyclability. This is elaborated in Epiroc Environmental Principles which state that we conduct our operations in a way that pollution to land, water and air is minimized to protect ecosystems and biodiversity. The principles guide substitution of hazardous substances from our products and processes, and that SVHC in our products are identified and communicated to stakeholders. Our Guideline for Responsible Use of Natural Resources aims to ensure that products and materials utilized by Epiroc are considered a resource and remain in the ecosystem at the highest resource value possible. In practice, this involves considering the presence of SOC and SVHC, as these affect the reusability and recyclability of products and materials. The guideline proposes a local metric to evaluate this by tracking whether the proportion of SVHC in products is decreasing.
Major Epiroc companies shall be ISO 14001 certified. By the end of 2025, 85% of Epiroc total workforce was working in an ISO 14001 certified company. Remaining part is either working in companies not in the ISO 14001 certification scope, or in newly acquired companies.
Our Substance of Concern (SOC) Policy and connected guidelines regulate identifying and phase out of SVHC in products, materials, and processes, internally and for suppliers. The objective is to meet legal and customer requirements, and that exposure to hazardous chemicals and materials is minimized. It clarifies expectations from Epiroc Group and is complemented by Epiroc’s prohibited list and declarable list. The prohibited list includes substances that are regulated in, e.g., the Montreal and Kyoto protocols, other global conventions, RoHS, REACH Annex XVII. The declarable list covers substances that are to be declared and phased out, e.g. SVHC and PFAS. The policy covers products sold by Epiroc, items delivered to Epiroc by any of our business partners and production processes carried out by or outsourced by Epiroc. Epiroc’s policy and lists of prohibited and declarable substances are published on Epiroc’s website. Additionally, the lists are available as Epiroc standards, allowing suppliers to subscribe for information on updates. A Group-wide procedure further explains roles, responsibilities, tools etc. Divisional presidents and General Managers are responsible for implementation of the policies and ensuring there are processes in place to ensure that products and processes are complying with the lists.
The policies are reviewed regularly and approved by VP Sustainability and are available to all internal stakeholders in our management system, the Epiroc Way.
By signing Epiroc’s Business Partner Code of Conduct (read more in Polices for workers in the value chain), suppliers confirm their compliance with Epiroc’s prohibited list and declarable list. They agree not to use prohibited substances, to declare the content of any declarable substances, to follow updates of the lists, and alert Epiroc if any included substance poses a problem. The declarable list includes all SVHC, PFAS as well as the conflict minerals tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold as well as cobalt.