Water resources: sustainable use and circularity

Small gestures to counter major emergencies

Also in 2021, the Camst Group worked to reduce water consumption in every area, true to its policy of responsible use of natural resources. A commitment that has touched both the catering area, with the continuation of the kitchen dry-cleaning project, and facility management, an area in which the Group can count on Ecolabel® certification for its environmentally friendly cleaning services.

According to the figures of the World Resources Institute (wri.org/aqueduct), most areas where the Group operates have high levels of water stress, an indicator that measures the ratio between total water use (for household, industrial or agricultural purposes) and the quantities available, as surface or groundwater, in a given geographical area.
Realising this, Camst applies a water resource management policy that allows its use to be reduced as far as possible, even though water is essential for catering area production processes and for facility management services, especially in the Soft Services area. In 2021, due to the resumption of activities after the downtime caused by the pandemic, water withdrawals rose to 909 mega litres, compared to 886 in 2020, while consumption increased from 218 to 334 mega litres.

The waterless cleaning process

Thanks to a project developed with the supplier Diversey, an answer was found to a long-standing challenge: that of reducing the amount of water used for cleaning kitchens while ensuring maximum hygiene. The waterless cleaning method, which adopts the sanitisation system used in operating theatres, is able to save large amounts of water and detergent and also increase safety levels for workers.
In the 32 meal centres where it is currently applied, a lower water consumption of 0.60 to 0.72 litres per meal has been recorded, resulting in an annual saving in 2021 of about 17.2 million litres, equivalent to 7 Olympic-size swimming pools. The water savings over the last three years are illustrated in the infographics.