Committed to a sustainable future
Much of our business is focused on the energy transition. For example, at the Intercel Electrification division, we aim to accelerate the transition from fossil fuel use of mobile machines to electricity by producing robust and technologically advanced batteries. And from our Intercel ESS (Energy Storage Systems) division, we aim to make the renewable energy sources needed for this available at all times by providing high-quality energy storage systems.
Regardless, we as Intercel are caught up in the energy transition and with it the transition to a sustainable future. This makes us even more aware that we must make choices responsibly and that a long-term sustainability strategy is important. Only in this way can we safeguard not only our own but also the needs of future generations.
Sustainability so far
Battery technologies
With commitment to a sustainable future, it is important that we identify the complete life cycle of our products as best we can and make them sustainable wherever possible.
The beginning of our products’ life cycles begins with the gathering of raw materials and the making of battery cells. Although this life phase is outside the direct scope of Intercel ‘s business processes, we can influence this life phase by making the right choices. In the battery industry, LFP (main raw materials: lithium, iron and phosphate) and NMC (main raw materials: nickel, manganese and cobalt) are two common lithium battery technologies. The extraction of cobalt is often done in unethical ways. In addition, the service life of LFP battery cells is much longer. Thus, we mainly use LFP battery cells in the custom batteries we supply.
Sustainability within Intercel ‘s business processes
In addition to choosing certain battery technologies, we at Intercel have an impact on the environment through the design of our business processes. Our energy consumption plays an important role in this. We have made this more sustainable by installing solar panels on our business premises, using an energy storage system at our new production center for custom batteries, and installing a heat pump. Half of our premises are already off gas. We are also trying to make transportation associated with our business processes as sustainable as possible. We limit air travel and most of our vehicle fleet is electric.
The “end” of life cycles
Doing business in a sustainable way also means that as a company we take responsibility for the products we supply and think about what happens to them at the end of their useful life. Intercel is affiliated with the Open Foundation (formerly Stibat), which, among other things, promotes the integrality of the recycling process. Until recently, lithium batteries were only partly recyclable because of the high temperatures required to do so. The good news is that new recycling techniques for lithium batteries are currently emerging that allow as much as 98% of the battery to be recycled. A promising development for the future of lithium battery technology.
A sustainable future
When it comes to sustainability, there is always room for improvement. That is why we are far from finished with sustainability. For example, we also want to:
- Do a life cycle analysis of a cradle-to-cradle battery. Based on this, Intercel can determine where further sustainability can take place. (2024).
- Making our new production center (to be built in Haarlem, planned time of completion: Q2 2025) even more sustainable (looking at BREEAM, GPR, among others).
- Electric commercial vehicles (when available for heavy loads).
- Even better map the ESG values of all our suppliers (2025).
- All commercial buildings off gas (2026).
In addition, we will investigate what Intercel can do with the batteries that will be returned from excavators, light-EVs, etc. in a few years. Possibly these can be reused in energy storage systems, for example. However, due to the long service life of the LFP cells, the batteries we supplied are still in use.
Finally, there is only one sustainable business choice that we have made the most impact with and that is our contribution to the energy transition! For 6 years we have been committed to making the energy grid, heavy construction equipment, aerial work platforms, light-EV and more sustainable. We have already been able to make a lot of impact with this and we are very proud of that.