Our responsibilities

Committed to a sustainable future

Much of our business is focused on the energy transition. For example, Intercel Electrification aims to accelerate the transition from fossil fuel use of mobile machinery to electricity by producing robust and technologically advanced batteries. And Intercel Storage aims to make the renewable energy resources needed available at all times by providing high-quality energy storage systems.

Regardless, we as Intercel are caught up in the energy transition and with it the transition to a sustainable future. This makes us even more aware that we must make choices responsibly and that a long-term sustainability strategy is important. Only in this way can we safeguard not only our own but also the needs of future generations.

Sustainability within Intercel’s business processes

In addition to choosing certain battery technologies, we at Intercel have an impact on the environment through the design of our business processes. Our energy consumption plays an important role in this. We have made this more sustainable by installing solar panels on our business premises, using an energy storage system at the new production center and installing a heat pump. Half of our premises are already off gas. We are also trying to make transport associated with our business processes as sustainable as possible. For example, we limit air travel and most of our vehicle fleet is electric.

The “end” of life cycles

Doing business in a sustainable way also means that as a company we take responsibility for the products we supply and think about what happens to them at the end of their useful life. Intercel is affiliated with Stichting Open (formerly Stibat), which, among other things, promotes the integrality of the recycling process. Lead batteries can be recycled; up to 99% of the materials can be recovered in this process. With lithium batteries, however, this percentage is lower and, for the time being, a lot of energy is lost due to the high temperatures required to recycle the cells. It is therefore interesting to investigate how these cells can be more highly recycled.

A sustainable future

When it comes to sustainability, there is always room for improvement. That is why we are far from finished. For example, we also want to:

• Gain full insight in the raw materials due diligence and carbon footprint of our products. Batteries are generally carbon heavy products, so based on these insights, Intercel can determine where further carbon reduction can take place.
  
• Making our other offices more sustainable. Our new office and production center in Haarlem are already owners of a A+++++ energy label.
  
• Electric commercial vehicles for our service fleet (when available for heavy loads).
  
• Map the ESG values of all our customers, so please come to us with your challenges and where we can help. Chances are, we already align with your goals and ambitions!

In addition, we will investigate what Intercel can do with the batteries that will be returned from excavators, light-EVs, etc. in a few years. Possibly these can be reused in energy storage systems, for example. However, due to the long service life of the LFP cells, the batteries we supplied are still in use.

Thanks to the industry we are in, we consider ourselves an impactful and worthy player for the energy transition. For over 40 years we have been mobilizing people and products in the health care industry, in construction for e.g. aerial work platforms and other industrial applications, and making sure there is backup power for telecom and hospitals. The last 6 years we have also been committed to creating solutions for grid congestion challenges and the energy grid. We have already been able to make a lot of impact and we are very proud of it.