photo: Ermewa press materials/Ermewa wagons
Ermewa SA, the European leader in wagon leasing, has been active in the circular economy for several years, trying to make the entire freight transport sector carbon neutral. These days, the company has taken another important step and furnished its offices with furniture made from materials from its own recycled freight cars.
Peter Reinshagen, CEO of Ermewa, outlined the company's position back in 2018 at a conference in Paris, stressing the need to follow the five pillars of circular economy in railcar leasing: construction and design, continuous use, maintenance, refurbishment, and recycling.
Overall, railcars are long-term capital assets that can remain in service for more than 40 years, but there always comes a point when a certain type of railcar is no longer in demand in the market, and, despite the obvious benefits of refurbishment and restoration, this solution is not always the best for several reasons: lack of profitability, the danger of continued use and, consequently, decommissioning. However, such problems do not prevent Ermewa from advancing its environmentally friendly goals. Through collaboration with several design companies, the railcar leasing leader has found other ways to recycle railcars, developing products that put these materials back into the economic cycle. It includes designer furniture in the company's offices made from wood from the floors of more unusable railcars, which was developed in collaboration with French partner SGM Recyclage.
Among other things, practical accessories, such as bags or covers for documents and cards, are made from the tarpaulin used to cover the wagon body. Solutions like this demonstrate the efficiency and practicality of the circular economy, which is actually embedded in the DNA of Ermewa, constantly challenging by climate change.