Corporate Responsibility
ENVIRONMENT

Water use: Performance and goals

In 2008, we used 2,699 cubic meters of water, compared with 3,534 cubic meters in 2005.

These figures are based on:

1. Actual water use covering 71 percent of total floor space in 2008 versus 59 percent in 2005
2. Estimated water use based on average water use per square foot for the remaining percent

Nearly all of the water we use is for sanitary purposes, such as restrooms and cafeterias, and not manufacturing.

Waste water
Nearly all of our wastewater is sanitary wastewater and is discharged to public sewer systems for treatment in compliance with regulations.

At our Jaguariuna, Brazil and Chennai, India sites, we treat sanitary wastewater onsite and use the treated water in toilets, gardens and cooling towers, thus creating zero discharge. We use the sludge from our wastewater treatment systems to fertilize the on-site garden in India and the on-site orange grove plantation in Brazil.

In the U.S., we operate two industrial wastewater treatment systems to process a very small amount of wastewater from our research and development laboratories. These systems treat the wastewater for pH and metals before discharging to the publicly-owned treatment system for further treatment in compliance with local regulations.