Sustainability
The founding principle of Fastmount was to design a system that enabled panels to be easily installed and removed, conserving resources during interior refit of a superyacht or a building. The introduction of our clips, particularly to the superyacht industry, created a way for panels to simply be removed, recovered and replaced instead of being thrown away, conserving timber panels in marine, and drywall in architectural refits, which in turn reduced post-industrial waste.
As Fastmount has grown, a key aspect of our evolution has involved working on how we can further reduce our business’ impact on the environment and people associated with our products by looking at our operating practices overall.
Based in New Zealand, we are committed to supporting our local industry and people as much as possible. Manufacturing in New Zealand facilitates not only stringent quality control over our products, which are developed and produced by some of the best talents in New Zealand, but also gives us the opportunity to continue to support the local advancement of skills in product design, tool design and manufacturing.
The manufacturer of our plastic clips uses late-model German moulding machines, which are servo driven and electrically efficient. As our plastic products are still manufactured in New Zealand, we are able to take advantage of our country’s renewable energy sources, 87% of which come from hydro, wind and geothermal resources. Our raw materials are sourced from suppliers who comply with ROHS and ISO14000.
We use circular concepts of sustainability in our manufacturing systems to ensure that the entire lifecycle of Fastmount products is considered. From the purpose-led design of the product, which allows panel reusability, to the selection of preferential polymers that are durable, reusable, recyclable and high performing, we consider the full lifecycle of a Fastmount clip. So that we are as energy efficient as possible, the use of multi-cavity tooling not only improves our operating efficiency, but reduces energy consumed per clip made. As a side effect of using a multi-cavity tool, there are sprues and runners that are typically discarded after moulding. We collect and regrind this surplus material, and it goes into the next run of the same product, which results in zero material waste generated during the manufacture of certain clips.
Once manufactured, our clips are packaged into reusable LDPE bags. While this is by no means the perfect solution, we are working with our suppliers to see how we can implement a durable, more sustainable solution as soon as possible. The inner and outer cartons that we use to ship the bags of clips are made from renewable NZ plantation grown radiata pine, and contain 72% recycled content.
As we continue to evolve as a business in a world impacted by climate change, pollution and resource scarcity, we want to continue to reduce our impact on our environment and improve the lives of those up and downstream in our value chain, keeping our actions focused on the future to do our part for future generations. To us this looks like:
- keeping up to date in the world of sustainable engineering materials and processes, and learning how we can implement these developments into our product lines
- researching how we can contribute to a circular economy with our product design
- seeking more sustainable packaging alternatives
- continuing to use suppliers that support our sustainability mission, maintaining sustainable, moral and ethical standards
- promoting the use of sea-freight over airfreight when exporting to distributors
- positively focused people policies, wages, gender balance, that help build the communities around our business
- participating in charitable practices that contribute positively to our communities and environment
If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]
