Meet the GBPAP18’s outstanding PTC showcases: Magnus Industrial Laundry (Brazil)

For the coming period, we will present you week by week, the most outstanding PTC showcases that were officially nominated for The Global Best Practices Awards Program 2018. The profiles of these companies are also present in the WOPCOM platform, which you can access here.

Magnus Industrial Laundry (Brazil)

Where sustainability is a philosophy

Ever since the foundation of Magnus Lavanderia Industrial in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1987, the company’s target segment has been clear. The company was set up with the purpose of serving the needs cleaning needs of the industrial sector, in particular the sectors of metallurgy, chemicals, and civil engineering. For more than 30 years already, Magnus has been providing professional washing, sanitizing, and maintenance services for individual protective equipment, such as uniforms, recyclable industrial towels, and rubber gloves and boots.
Magnus Industrial Laundry in Sao Paulo stands out, thanks to the way in which the company approaches the topics of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. At Magnus, sustainability isn’t just a policy or a regulation, but a complete philosophy. Over recent years, the company has been leading the way in showing that sustainable business practices and corporate profitability can go hand in hand effortlessly. In this area, Magnus Lavanderia is definitely a pioneer in terms of the domestic dry cleaning and laundry services market in Brazil.

At Magnus, a sustainable dry cleaning or washing process is one that optimises the use of resources, such as water, power, and detergent. One of the principal steps towards becoming more environmental-friendly in this sense, was obtaining the ISO 14001 certificate in 2005. By building an internal water treatment plant for the reusing of water and going from electric ironing to steam ironing, to give two illustrative examples, Magnus has managed to reduce the effects of its operations on the environment, while at the same time achieving considerable cost reductions for a positive impact on the company’s bottom line.

The ironing section

A sustainable approach to increasing profits

ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment, how to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements, and how to continually improve in these areas. This international certification helped Magnus get a legion of major clients in Sao Paulo and surroundings.

In more than three decades of activity in the local and regional dry cleaning and laundry services sector, Magnus Lavanderia has built up a reputation of a company that’s concerned with the environment and the future of society as a whole. Illustrative of this are the investments that have been made by the company to improve the environmental-friendliness of its operations. Just for the creation and the correct implementation of the company’s current Environmental Management System, the company has spent more than €100’000 over the past few years.

The results of this investment in terms of the resource consumption are impressive, though. For instance, part of this investment was used to replace the traditional gas boilers with wood-based boilers. This measure resulted in a cost reduction of almost 70% when it came to the production of steam to power certain processes. Add to this the replacement of electric irons with steam irons, and Magnus reached savings of about 15% on the monthly electricity bill. There is no better example than this to show the business opportunities that can come with operating in a more environmentally responsible manner.

Reducing the consumption of natural resources is the key

For years now, Magnus Lavanderia Industrial has shown by doing that small and medium-sized companies also have the potential to benefit from the considerable results and operational improvements offered by modern sustainability systems. Previously, the example of the company’s increased and improved use of steam as a principal source of power was highlighted. This was a major innovation and a big step towards creating a more environmental-friendly organisation, but Magnus took more measures.

One of the most significant measures in this sense was the creation of a full-out water treatment plant with a maximum capacity of 250’000 litres. This means that the plant can collect, purify, and deliver 250’000 litres of water to be reused in the company’s processes per day. At the moment, Magnus consumes about 4 million litres of water per month, so the opening of this treatment place had a huge impact on the company’s operations, as well as its bottom line. About 85% of the water that’s now used by the company’s processes is actually reused water, which has resulted in monthly reduction of the energy and water bill of almost €5’000, or about a 7% increase of the profit margin.

For companies who are looking for a way to be more sustainable, but don’t know exactly what to do and how to approach the challenge, Magnus Lavanderia Industrial can serve as a prime example. For more than 30 years, this company has demonstrated that corporate success, highquality service, and a socio-environmental conscience can be combined without a problem.

Water treatment installation