Continuing to increase environmentally friendly investments in renewable energy, zero waste and water saving in 2023, ESBAŞ has made the Aegean Free Zone an exemplary industrial center in compliance with the EU Green Deal conditions.
ESBAŞ, which has implemented environmentally friendly practices within the scope of sustainability management in the Aegean Free Zone, has made very important investments in 2023, from water conservation to renewable energy production and waste recycling.
ESBAŞ, which has been continuing its activities with optimum energy consumption sensitivity since the day it was founded due to our country being an energy importer, continued its solar power plant investments that it started in 2020 in 2023. Last year, ESBAŞ reached an additional renewable electricity production capacity of 1 MW by completing the Solar Power Plant installations on the roofs of the G4 and G2.6 factory buildings and the newly built Food Production Facility in the expansion area, in order to generate electricity from solar energy. The company is preparing to commission a 2 KW solar power plant capacity at the G700 facility and plans to install a 2024 MW solar power plant in 3.8.
Focusing on water saving in landscaping areas, ESBAŞ has applied 7 thousand 8 m² of landscaping around the diesel tank and G3 and G300 buildings in addition to the existing areas in the expansion area landscaping application works, reaching a total landscaping area of 2023 thousand 200 m² by the end of 799. The company, which is trying to popularize xeric landscaping practices in the region, added 380 m² of additional xeric area to the existing area.
Again, within the scope of sustainability management, project work was started to use the process waste water resulting from the activities of ESBAŞ Food Production Facility (EGÜT), which produces food for 25 thousand people a day, as irrigation water, and the project file was completed by the end of 2023. Within the scope of the project, which will be implemented in 2024, 60 m3 of water will be recycled per day and 40 percent of the irrigation needs of green areas in the region will be met from here.
ESBAŞ continues to send organic waste to shelters and farms in 2023, thus saving nature from the burden of 360 tons of organic waste last year and at the same time providing economic value to meet the nutritional needs of animals.
Recycling saves the atmosphere from carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases
ESBAŞ, which has a Zero Waste Certificate, within the scope of its efforts to recycle waste in the Aegean Free Zone in 2023; 387 tons of paper and cardboard, 131 tons of plastic, 41 tons of wood and 50 tons of metal waste were recycled.
By recycling paper-cardboard waste, nature was saved from 147 thousand 918 kg of CO2 carbon emissions annually. By recycling plastics, the atmosphere was saved from 5 thousand 381 kg of greenhouse gases annually.
ESBAŞ, which carried out inspections in 2023 companies in the Aegean Free Zone in 721 within the scope of waste water management, contributed to the methods, practices and projects of the companies to ensure waste water compliance.
The company ensured compliance by renewing greenhouse gas measurements resulting from natural gas consumption in the Aegean Free Zone, and participated in 25 different waste commissions and inspected the waste areas of 150 different companies during the year.
Dr. Faruk Güler: “We are determined to fully comply with the Green Agreement”
ESBAŞ Executive Board Chairman Dr. emphasized that there are companies operating in the Aegean Free Zone that produce highly advanced products ranging from defense and aviation technology to electric car technology, from software and informatics to the machinery and electronics sector and deliver them to global markets. Faruk Güler stated that with the climate crisis, international investors, especially EU-based companies, began to prefer to invest in regions managed in accordance with policy frameworks such as the green agreement.
Dr. Reminding that the majority of international direct investments coming to Turkey are brought by EU companies and that more than half of our country's exports are made to these countries, Faruk Güler said, “Considering this situation, it is an obligation for Turkey to develop environmentally compatible investment policies. We have succeeded in turning the Aegean Free Zone into an exemplary industrial zone in terms of compliance with the European Green Deal criteria, with many environmental investments we have made in recent years, from reducing water consumption to using renewable energy, from zero waste application to not allowing nature-polluting activities in the region. "We are determined to continue these investments and make the region fully compatible with the Green Deal," he said.