Social Responsibility

Ekology leaflet 2023 (5.9 MB)

The customer is always at the heart of our efforts. We believe it is only the satisfaction of all customers that may help the company prosper. Any Centropen trademark bearing product that makes it to the market must comply with the most stringent quality and health safety criteria, the more so that most of our products qualify as toys.

Customers require not only quality products. They expect the writing utensils to be able to satisfy the changing requirements invoked by modern times. People write less and less. Instead of writing, they use computers, tablets and smart phones. However, information technologies are not our enemy. They amount to an opportunity for us and create room for further improvement and innovation.

As regards innovation, every single staff member is encouraged in their endeavours – a production labourer or a payroll accountant, they all may use the "Improvement Suggestion Submission Form". Each innovation related to product or process efficiency improvement, waste reduction or making the working environment more agreeable is welcome.
Every year, the company succeeds in putting a number of such suggestions into practical use. Staff members who succeed in putting their ideas forward are entitled to a remuneration.

In any communication, whether it concerns customers, authorities or the media, the company always strives to be as open and fair as possible. It is not our aim to obfuscate or even conceal any, even negative, information. This is attested to by the corporate bulletin which comes out once a quarter, in which the company management informs both their own employees and the local community.

Our publicity communications are always truthful. We have waived any form of comparative advertising. In our marketing communication, we always highlight the strengths of our products instead of bashing our competitors.

We believe there is no place for corruption in the business world.

We refuse to engage in endless prolonging of invoice payment terms as is an unfortunate and common habit with certain companies. Centropen always complies with its payment obligations within the payment term required.

We appreciate our staff. Our long-term effort is to improve working conditions and the working environment for all our employees.

We take a great deal of pride in our production floors, which comply with the most stringent sanitary limits as regards cleanliness, airborne dust, noise and adequate lighting.

We understand that a satisfied employee is a hard working employee. In addition to the regular wage, our employees are further entitled to five weeks of paid vacation, 13th and 14th wages, meals in the company cafeteria at competitive prices and the option to receive a credit from the company's resources to address various precarious financial situations.

We believe that in order to secure maximum satisfaction on both sides, the employer/employee relation must be correct and, first and foremost, lasting. Wherever we address the need for overhead reductions, lay-offs constitute the last resort for us. Instead, we try to save costs through increased labour efficiency and negotiations with suppliers.

Every year, we invest a considerable amount in our trade unions, which represent their members in collective bargaining with the company management, but also provide financial support for members' holidays, children's camps, etc.

Every year, Centropen invests CZK 300,000 in social projects, sport and culture in Dačice and its surroundings. We feel it is almost our obligation to contribute this small amount. Even amidst the hardships of the economic recession, we did not move to reduce the amount contributed.

The organisations we traditionally support most are the Athletics Club Centropen and Athletics Club Sokol Dačice - Centropen.

We place a great deal of emphasis on sustainable development. The principles of environmental operations are respected across the company. Waste reducing and air, soil and water pollution supressing technologies have been implemented in each production step. Sound energy management is taken for granted by every single staff member of the company.

In our products, we avoid such materials that are not environmentally friendly or are directly deleterious to health. 99 % of all plastic parts are made of polypropylene, which is easy to recycle after use.
As regards packaging materials, inconvenient PVC has already been replaced with polypropylene and paper.
In doing so, we made extensive use of the EU's Innovation III Grant Scheme, which assisted us in financing the costly technological changes associated with the upgrade. This specifically involved the development and introduction of polypropylene boxes for four-unit sets of office utensils.

In the plastic pressing shop, we succeeded in reducing the waste (in-flows and any rejects) to a minimum thanks to the deployment of crushers and the reverse transformation of rejects into injection material. As regards polychromatic pressings produced via injection re-moulding to another colour tinge, they are also crushed and coloured into black granulation product on the regranulation line.

The pressings that can no longer be crushed due to impurities sintered into them are sold to an external operator for further processing.

We have introduced low-revolution crushers in order to reduce noise emissions. The advantages lie in lower noise levels in crushing inflowing material and a higher-quality granulation product, as the powder fraction of the material is reduced. This has an effect on the quality of the pressings in that it reduces material losses.

When cleaning and cooling down the machines and moulds, we only use chemical additions that are environmentally friendly and more easily biodegradable.

Hazardous substances including acetylene are released during the technologically demanding production of fibre tops. In respect of our philosophy of environmentally friendly operations, we have decided to acquire a special combustion plant in which all hazardous substances are neutralised.

Wastes resulting from ink production and produced by the laboratory are first chemically neutralised and then disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner by a specialised company.

We are doing our best to reduce electricity consumption on an on-going basis. Therefore, we have launched new hybrid injection moulding presses that exhibit power consumption 20 -40 % lower than the existing hydraulic presses. This is due to a combination of servo-electric and hydraulic injection mould units - the drives operate more efficiently. Parallel movement of the individual parts of the press may be programmed in order to reduce the working cycle and increase the machine's power.

This reduction in power consumption is closely related to the innovation introduced in the heating bodies of the presses, where the heating chambers are insulated using special insulation blankets, thanks to which the energy consumption has dropped by 25 - 30 %.

Old windows are gradually being replaced by plastic windows and thermal insulation is being applied to the claddings of the buildings.

Energy intensity has also been reduced thanks to EU funds, which assisted us in constructing boiler rooms at each site and closing down the central boiler room. This results in cost savings in heating as the heat no longer needs to be supplied via a long heating pipe, which caused heat losses, and only those buildings where heating is actually required are heated.