Sustainability through Transparency
Marco Dörr has been Managing Director of Stannol GmbH & Co. KG since 2017. The topic of sustainability is particularly important to him when it comes to the strategic development of the company. In this interview, he explains why environmentally and human-friendly tin production will become increasingly important in the future and why there must be a fundamental change in thinking when it comes to solder recycling.
Mr. Dörr, why is the topic of sustainability also important in the solder industry?
Tin is one of the raw materials with the lowest reserves. At the same time, tin is indispensable for the production of electronic products – which means that demand is high. However, the primary extraction of raw materials is accompanied by enormous environmental destruction, most of which takes place under inhumane conditions in Southeast Asia. If you Google "tin and Indonesia" in the image search, you get an insight into the conditions prevailing there: Large companies use huge dredgers for tin extraction, which vacuum up the seabed and thus destroy all life there.
Whole families stand barefoot in the mud with pickaxes as part of so-called small-scale mining and extract the raw material – without any protective clothing or social security. Child labour is also often the order of the day here. These are circumstances that any responsible company should address.
Why was Stannol the first in the industry to address the issue of environmentally friendly tin production at such an early stage?
Once you realise the deplorable conditions that prevail in the mining areas, it is hard not to take a closer look at the issue. That is why we have set ourselves the goal of finding better alternatives to this type of raw material extraction. For solder from our greenconnect range, for example, we use primary raw materials from companies that not only comply with international environmental standards, but also take adequate protective measures for their employees and do not engage in child labour.
Alternatively, for the greenconnect soldering products, tin is used that consists of highly pure secondary raw materials – that means tin that is extracted with the help of ultra-modern recycling processes within Europe. In the future we want to further expand the topic of sustainability. Not only in terms of the origin of our products, but also in terms of the manufacturing processes. By installing ceiling fans in the production halls, for example, we were able to ensure that the heat generated is better distributed in the halls, thus reducing heating costs and CO2 emissions.
What are the challenges of sustainability in the electronics industry?
Besides the quality of the solder, the price is the most relevant factor for the buyers. Within companies, there is often the requirement to buy raw materials as cheaply as possible because of international competition. However, tin that is mined in an environmentally and human friendly way is more expensive than conventionally mined tin. Fortunately, a change in thinking is already underway in companies: Some electronics manufacturers now even attach great importance to the fact that the solder used comes from "clean" sources.
Another important point is the issue of recycling: recycled solder had a bad reputation in the industry for a long time. This was not least due to the fact that recycled solder used to often be of inferior quality. With today's modern recycling processes, however, you get high-quality secondary raw materials, some of which are even purer than primary tin. Here, it is important to further raise awareness among customers.
Where are the opportunities and what are the prospects around sustainable solder production?
The issue of recycling will become more important in the future, not least because of ever-increasing raw material prices. Higher recycling rates would also help to reduce the amount of tin that has to be mined and thus prevent some problems from arising in the first place. Germany is currently still far below the international average when it comes to recycling solders - there is great potential here that should be further explored. Another important topic: transparency.
If it is consistently exposed how and where materials are obtained, supply chains are traceable and all stakeholders can easily find out where a product comes from, a great deal of social pressure will be generated. This will also contribute to further changes in people's attitudes.
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