Ryder Industries’ Green Initiatives Help Set The Company Apart

Environmental code of conduct & sustainability initiatives provide differentiation & competitive advantage

Ryder Industries, headquartered in Hong Kong, is an Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) provider with two facilities in Southern China:  a technology-focused coastal plant, and a scale-focused facility inland. The Swiss-owned company cares deeply that its culture and values should reflect those of its founder and owner – with integrity chief among these. “Swiss precision and Chinese scale” is the maxim that Ryder lives by, and is what it delivers to its customers. Ryder’s impressive environmental credentials, built upon a range of initiatives, policies and practices, are key in differentiating it for its customers, setting them apart from many other EMS providers.

When Ryder established its operations in China, environmental responsibility, sustainability and green initiatives were central to the company’s approach, guiding how it designed and built its facilities, and how it planned its business processes and practices.

Vice President, Raymond Lim, said:

“Sustainability is a foundational principle in Ryder’s business strategy. Right from conception, plans for our Inland facility included an unwavering commitment: any new Ryder facility would have to be green, efficient, and sustainable. We knew back then that achieving this would benefit our customers, our people, and our local communities. Looking back, and remembering those ambitious plans, I am proud to say, Ryder delivered on each one, and yet we are always looking for ways to do more!”

Green initiatives in place at Ryder facilities include:

• A ground source climate control system, cooling in the summer and storing the heat underground, then extracting it to provide heating in winter.
• In both plants a solar thermal system captures the heating rays of the sun (even in midwinter) and generates hot water for all.
• Energy is also recovered from the heavy-duty industrial air compressors to heat water.

The company respects all applicable environmental laws, regulations and international agreements, implementing programmes and procedures to ensure full compliance. All new products are designed and specified to comply with environmental directives, with independent proof of compliance available for customers, including raw materials vendor declarations of conformity for each component type. Suppliers to Ryder Industries must comply with ROHS requirements and are responsible for ensuring that their own component supply chain can also provide proof of conformity. All component suppliers must also be able to demonstrate compliance with relevant environmental regulations, including WEEE, PFOS and REACH.

Ryder is committed to conducting business in a manner that delivers continuous improvement in environmental performance, as well as protecting the communities where it operates. Since 2004, the company has been ISO 14001-certified. Internationally recognised as the leading environmental management system standard, ISO 14001 provides a systematic framework for integrating environmental management practices, supporting waste minimisation, environmental and pollution protection, as well as energy and materials consumption reduction. It helps Ryder improve resource efficiency, reduce waste and minimise costs, providing assurance to company management and employees, as well as external stakeholders, that environmental impact is being measured and improved.

A contributing factor to the company’s successful expansion has been its ability to not only work in harmony with the Chinese Government, but to become a company that the authorities look towards as a role model, based on its pioneering green initiatives. Ryder Industries’ sustainability methods are now regularly held up as best practice examples for other multinational organisations looking to develop operations in and around our inland plant – something that Ryder’s management team is proud of.

Ryder’s customers appreciate – and increasingly demand – such high standards of environmental awareness and practice, often specifying requirements and expectations in their own supplier code of conduct for Ryder to adhere to. Customers in this market are not accustomed to EMS companies prioritising sustainability the way Ryder does as a matter of course.

As well as providing market differentiation and competitive advantage, Ryder’s green credentials also boost its recruitment and retention efforts.

Raymond Lim concludes: “We know that Ryder’s guiding principles, the responsible way we do business, set us apart from many of our competitors, not just in the eyes of potential customers, but also in the eyes of potential team members. Ryder Industries is locally known as an employer of choice, and many new employees often tell us that they were attracted to Ryder’s excellent reputation within the local community. People place a lot of importance on being able to take pride in their workplace.  Ryder has created a company culture which emphasises respect, responsibility and being a partner that can be relied upon; we have found over the years that that culture attracts people with the same values to come and work with us.”