“The benefits of such consistency and quality are passed along to our customers,” says Barakat. “In turn, they have gained additional customers by being empowered to reduce their costs. They are now able to order thinner gauge sheet while knowing exactly how much packaging they can manufacture from the material they buy.”
Octal’s sustainability efforts involved finding ways to use water as sparingly as possible. For the production process of Octal. DPET, only recycled water is used and is delivered by a specially built pipeline bringing wastewater from the local municipal waterworks. By recycling this water using reverse osmosis technology in tandem with sand filtration, 80 percent of the water can be used in the manufacturing process. Any extra water is used to irrigate the greenbelt around the factory.
Octal has been able to reduce its transportation carbon footprint as well.
“When scouting for a location for our plant, we began with a true global view of transportation costs, and, as a consequence, ultimately decided to position our plant only a few hundred meters from the Port of Salalah, a world-class transshipment hub catering to the world’s leading shipping lines,” Bakakat says.
“This allowed us to service the supply needs of manufacturing customers with locations worldwide. The strategic location has proven to be a competitive advantage with cost savings opportunities for customers – plus, the streamlining of shipping requirements contributes to a reduction of the company's total carbon footprint.”
Barakat adds, “Please keep in mind, just telling our customers that we offer a smaller carbon footprint than our competitors was far from being enough to convince major manufacturers to make the switch to our company. We had to prove Octal's carbon footprint through third-party testing.”
In early 2011, Intertek Expert Services, an internationally recognized, independent testing service, generated a carbon footprint of Octal DPET sheet and compared the results to other leading alternative plastics. The study considered all emissions related to the production of resin and DPET sheet at Octal’s Salalah facility in Oman, and established a carbon footprint characterizing the delivery of Octal resin and DPET sheet to the United States.
“In summary,” Barakat says, “our sustainability initiatives have driven OCTAL revenue for the fiscal year 2010-2011 to rise to US$464 million compared to $330 million in 2009-2010. During Interpack 2011, our booth was crowded with major manufactures looking for alternative, higher performing materials, a very real indication that sustainability is so much more than a buzzword – it is a way of preparing for a successful future.”
