At all 15 production facilities in Europe, Mexico and Asia, Villeroy & Boch contributes to the reduction of energy, water and raw material consumption by integrating environmental protection into all processes. The intelligent optimization of production processes lead to a significant improvement in resource efficiency. In many areas, the company has already considerably surpassed the environmental standards required by law.

The environmental protection management of Villeroy & Boch is regularly reviewed by independent third parties for the EMAS certificate and the international environmental management standard ISO 14001. At the moment, four production facilities are validated by EMAS criteria and eight facilities certified to ISO 14001 standards.

EMAS, which stands for the Eco Management and Audit Scheme, was developed by the European Union and is the eco audit ordinance applicable for EU nations. It is a Community scheme comprising environmental management and environmental auditing for organisations that wish to improve their environmental performance. The EMAS directive (eco-audit directive) ascribes a crucial role to the individual responsibility of an economy to deal with its direct and indirect environmental impact and relates to a defined location.

ISO 14001, however, is an international environmental management standard which defines globally recognised requirements for an environmental management system. It focuses on a process of continuous improvement as a means to achieve the particular, defined environmental targets of an organisation. This process is based on the “plan – do – check – act” method.