Our Operations

We have an active long-term sustainability program aimed at improving the environmental performance of all our business activities. The program focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing energy and water consumption, and reducing the amount of waste generated in the manufacturing process.

Over the last few years Rheem has undertaken a number of programs to achieve these goals, including:

• the installation of lower energy consuming LED lights throughout our factories
• the installation at our Rydalmere factory of a multi-million dollar high efficiency gas oven, reducing our gas consumption by 40%
• the implementation of automatic timer controls and variable speed drive controls on manufacturing equipment 
• the installation of a photovoltaic (PV) array on our Rydalmere factory roof to capture solar energy to for use in our manufacturing process

For the last decade Rheem has also been focused on reducing our water usage. Improvements that have been implemented include the introduction of rainwater harvesting systems and the recycling of discharge water from water heater testing processes. In the early years of the program our water saving initiatives reduced water use at our Sydney headquarters by 5.8 megalitres, a reduction of 29% of our average usage. These strong results have been maintained and we’ve reduced water use by 75% over the past 10 years.

In 2019 Rheem’s global parent announced a new environmental target for our facilities - that we achieve zero waste to landfill in our global manufacturing operations by 2025, meaning we divert 90% of all non-hazardous wastes from landfill. Over the last few years Rheem has undertaken a number of programs to achieve this goal, including:

• Installation of an oily waste treatment plant diverting approximately 50 tonnes of waste from landfill annually.
• Installation of a dewatering wet enamel plant, diverting approximately 117 tonnes of waste from landfill annually.
• Increased our recycling stream to include used metal shots and metal shot dust, PET straps.
• Phasing out of problematic packaging with focus on expanded polystyrene from all manufacturing facilities in Australia.

Critical to the success of these sustainability programs are our people. To ensure that we are able to reach our sustainability goals, a number of environmental focused committees staffed by front line employees have been formed. More broadly, improving the environmental awareness of our employees is an ongoing focus. For example, in 2019 our product development engineering team underwent training to help them design product packaging that has a lower impact on waste streams. The exercise will have a direct impact on Rheem’s ability to meet our Australian Packaging Covenant commitments.