“Responsibility” for the LORENTZ group of companies encompasses everything that we do. We conduct our business activities in a responsible way under a set of basic principles that relate to people, the environment, business ethics, quality and the global community.
These principles of business become apparent in everyday activities and can be demonstrated by the examples provided.
People
We respect and look after our employees well.
We pride ourselves on keeping our staff excited and motivated. We have a low turnover of staff in our factory, engineering and sales functions. Even in a very competitive labor market we have an annual staff turnover of below 5% in our Beijing, China production facility.
The following behaviors are in place:
- LORENTZ respect the laws, guidelines and best practices of employment in every country that we operate
- We do not support or tolerate discrimination relating to gender, religion, race, disability or other factors in the workplace
- All employees are paid above minimum wage
- Free clothing and meals are provided for our production workers
- Regular employee / management discussion forums happen across the organization
- Annual profit related bonuses are in place
- Company funded social events are provided for employees and their families
- We have well defined employee core values that we all work to – read more here
Environment
Tons and tons of CO2 are saved every year with LORENTZ products. We are in a green industry and continuously improve our environmental measures for our own company.
Our pumps reduce the reliance on fossil fuels for drinking water, irrigation, and livestock and therefore significantly reduce environmental pollution. Because of their high efficiency and long live span, we minimize our product’s environmental impact even more – less replacements, less pollution. However, producing highly sustainable products does not satisfy our standards for sustainability. Therefore, we always go one step further:
- Not only our products are solar powered, but our headquarters and our factory are too. In fact, the solar roof in our factory is 200% self-sufficient and the solar roof array and the modules in the yard in Germany are over 300% self-sufficient. We feed surplus energy into the grid and thus add renewably generated electricity into the system. Together with choosing environmentally friendly materials and careful recycling, our products are sustainable all the way – from the time of manufacturing until operation and maintenance.
- We use energy saving and efficient LED lights wherever possible – from the streetlights to the office and factory lighting.
- We provide charging points for vehicles to encourage electric cars and scooters among our employees.
- Both, our German headquarters, and our factory use part of the land for cultivation of insect-friendly plants and trees. The factory sports many trees and flowers, while the German headquarters planted over 200 square feet of insect-friendly wildflowers.
- We have a filtering system in place for tap water. This means employees do not have to rely on plastic bottles for drinking water. The only plastic bottles we stock for guests are from the organization “Viva con Agua”.
- We have our own 80kW solar generator and pump our own water using LORENTZ solar powered water pumps for our factory.
Business Ethics
We act honestly and fairly with our business partners and suppliers.
- Our partnerADVANTAGE program sets out the guidelines for how we interact with our business partners. The program provides clear requirements and expectations for healthy business relationships to be formed
- We have a zero tolerance policy towards bribery and corruption and are implementing and enforcing effective systems to counter bribery
- We believe we are in an exciting and valuable industry and try to protect our reputation and the reputation of our industry in the way we behave
Quality
We work hard to ensure that what we do is of the highest quality.
Our products are typically installed in very remote locations, ensuring they work out of the box and have a long operating life is a critical design.
- We meet and have certification to international quality standards such as ISO 9001
- Our products hold international quality and safety certifications that require regular auditing of our offices and production facilities. Examples of these would be TUV, IEC and UL.
- Our production facility operates a self-driven continuous improvement methodology based on lean management methods like Kaizen
- We have regular visitors from governments, non-governmental organizations, large commercial partners and educational institutions to inspect and verify our operations and quality systems
Global Community
LORENTZ recognizes that we are part of a wider global community with the social responsibility that this brings.
We make specific donations to worthy causes through the year. We typically donate some full pumping systems to communities in need. We also support projects locally through our sales partners.
In addition we contribute to the global community in the following ways:
- By working with universities, non-governmental organizations and charities on water related education topics
- Providing training and capacity building within our industry segment to help specific communities, countries or development projects to be successful
- By supporting graduate/doctorate programs with educational establishments
- Direct giving in the form of labor and products to charitable projects