From insight to impact: our sustainability approach
In 2025, Flanders Make took important steps to make sustainability concrete and measurable. Through targeted actions and new insights, we are building an organisation that not only understands its impact, but also actively steers and strengthens it.
The energy and CO₂ dashboard developed in 2024 gave us, for the first time, a clear overview of our energy consumption and emissions, broken down by site and lab. Based on these insights, targeted actions could be taken immediately in 2025. For example, optimising the compressed-air system in Lommel led to structural savings of around 45,000 kWh per year, comparable to the electricity consumption of approximately 15 average households.
Indirect emissions
This year, the eco-team established in 2024 made a first attempt to better map the indirect emissions in our value chain, such as emissions from purchased goods and services and from commuting. To do this, an estimate of the associated CO₂ emissions was made based on our expenditure per purchasing category.
It became clear that our CO₂ footprint was largely determined by purchased goods and services. This means that we can make a significant impact through the way we invest and purchase. We therefore decided to take steps in 2026 towards a more sustainable purchasing policy, with a focus on clear KPIs such as avoiding unnecessary purchases, increasing the reuse and shared use of equipment, and making better use of existing infrastructure.
Positive impact through innovation
In addition to reducing our own footprint, we mainly want to strengthen our “handprint”: the positive impact we create through innovation at companies. In 2025, we explored how sustainability could be integrated more systematically into research projects and product development. Based on these insights, it was decided to establish a “sustainability office” in 2026, with the explicit mission of strengthening our handprint. After all, sustainable companies that focus on circularity and low energy consumption are also more resilient in a rapidly changing world. In addition to embedding sustainability more systematically in our business processes, we will also focus on further competence development in this area.
Last but not least, we explored the sustainability reporting landscape in a year in which European legislation in this area changed significantly.
2025 therefore marks a clear evolution: from initial insights to measurable impact and targeted steering. With concrete figures, clear KPIs, and a dedicated sustainability office, Flanders Make is further strengthening its position as a partner in sustainable innovation.
Together, we are building the industry of tomorrow: smarter, more efficient, and more sustainable.
