MAIA, Portugal - CIN, Iberia's leading paint and varnish company, has substantially reduced its environmental footprint by setting up a treatment unit for VOCs at its Maia industrial site and by developing more environmentally friendly solutions for its customers.

With an initial investment of EUR 700,000 in technology, CIN has achieved a more than 95 percent reduction in VOC emissions from the 40,000 cubic meters/hour of contaminated air produced by the industrial site in question. 

CIN is also committed to developing new and more environmentally friendly product solutions. With this in mind, it assigned 30 employees from its Research and Development department to this project. They have spent more than 55,000 hours working on 36 projects to create new products and rework existing ones. 

José Calvão, Manager of CIN’s Environment, Health and Safety Department, said “We are very happy with the results and pleased to see a significant reduction in our business’s environmental impact thanks to our efforts. But this is not the end. We will continue to develop innovative solutions to reduce our environmental footprint in all areas of the company’s work."

CIN has also encouraged the use of water-based products by its household and professional customers. Thanks to these measures, CIN and its customers achieved an overall reduction of 1170 metric tons of VOC atmospheric emissions thereby improving air quality.

CIN has set the goal of preventing and limiting pollution in all areas of its business. Over the years, the company has implemented operational practices to improve its eco-efficiency. This goal is reflected in significant indicators over the 2009-2011 period, such as a 13.2 percent reduction in total water consumption, a 6.4 percent reduction in energy consumption, a 6.7 percent reduction in waste generation, and a recycling and reuse rate of 83 percent of hazardous waste generated by the company.