DAMPA Completes GCO Project

DAMPA has just completed a project within Green Circular Transition. The outcome from the project is a lot of good green ideas and a roadmap for how DAMPA will continue the path towards a greener and circular transition.

Since the beginning of 2021, DAMPA has been part of the national project Green Circular Transition Project (In Danish: Grøn Cirkulær Omstilling (GCO)). In collaboration with Danish Energy Management, we have just handed in the project, which focuses on how DAMPA can continue to contribute to a greener transition and ensure continuous minimization of the organization’s CO2 footprint.

“In recent years, we have increased focus on sustainability. Although metal is difficult to extract, it is an advantageous building material for our planet” says Michael Nykjær, director at DAMPA and continues:

“When producing metal from recycled material, resource consumption is approximately 10 times less, than when producing from new metal. The metal can be recycled again and again without losing its strength and its mechanical properties. We therefore have a very strong focus on ensuring a high degree of recycling and reuse of the materials in our ceilings”.

Greener solutions to come

Through the project several ideas have come to our mind, so we at DAMPA can secure to minimize our carbon footprint without compromising with the quality of our solutions.

“We are constantly focusing on improving our environmental strategy, so that we can minimize our CO₂ footprint. Through the GCO project, we started a talk about our acoustic batches, and this autumn we started a collaboration with a student from SDU to find a greener solution for our acoustic batches”, says Mogens Kjærgaard, Product Manager at DAMPA.

The focus on sustainability will only grow in the future. DAMPA are ready to work and develop more sustainable solutions for both the building and marine industry.

The sustainable standard

At Danish Energy Management (DEM), who has helped DAMPA complete the project, they are excitedly following DAMPA and our continuous work with the solutions, that we found through our common project:

“DAMPA is an ambitious company that really wants to develop the best, sustainable products. Therefore, in the GCO project, several exciting and very relevant opportunities came to the table, which I am very much looking forward to following the development of” says Jakob Rosgaard Dyring, Master of Science in Sustainable Construction at DEM, and elaborates:

“With a product that only consists of "pure" materials as aluminum or steel, it is straightforward to incorporate sustainable measures such as repossession, direct recycling, urban mining, etc. DAMPA has the potential to become one of the companies that sets the sustainable standard in the industry for metal products”.

Reuse the ceiling solutions again and again

At DAMPA, we already have a strong focus on reusing the materials in production, but with the GCO project, it has been possible to look at solutions that can ensure even greater assurance of the products' recycling.

"Our products have a long service life, we often experience DAMPA ceilings that are more than 50 years old", explains Michael Nykjær, and continues:

“Our ceilings sometimes last longer than the buildings. This opens the possibility of reusing our ceilings for new purposes. With a simple solution, we can optimize the ceilings for today's requirements regarding acoustics and indoor climate and adapt them to a new design, if desired”.

This also creates unique opportunities to reuse ceilings from old buildings for new projects. Solutions that benefit both the economy and the environment.

"One of the places where they have recycled our 'Knudrisrækkerne', where the old population register in Aarhus has been converted into public housing. Here, with a few changes, our aluminum ceiling tiles have been reused to be part of the facade” concludes Michael Nykjær.

See the recycled aluminium panels in this short coverage of ‘Knudrisrækkerne’ (in Danish).

Reduce - Reuse - Recycle

"Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" is the DAMPA way of ensuring that we always focus on sustainability both in everyday life, in new projects and in the creation of new products.

• Reduce: At DAMPA, we continuously optimize and develop our solutions and production processes so that we can reduce material consumption and minimize waste.
• Reuse: due to the material's robustness and long service life, our acoustic solutions can be reused at the end of original use and adapted to new purposes
• Recycle: All surplus material from our factory is sorted and recycled. Likewise, all our solutions can be recycled after end use

Facts about the GCO project

Green Circular Transition (In Danish: Grøn Cirkulær Omstilling (GCO)) is a Danish project that broadly and across industries develops and implements green and circular business models in small and medium-sized companies based in Denmark.

The project will help over 450 companies to develop their business in a more sustainable and circular direction

Read more about the GCO project here (only in Danish)