Municipality of Veere happy with Multi Mirror
“In effect, the Satino Multi Mirror programme was there for the taking,” asserts Geert Ridderbos, Head of Internal Services & Computerisation for the Municipality of Veere. “We want to be a sustainable community, which for us means being proud of what you have. This already played an important role during the reorganisation of municipal boundaries in 1997: making sure that we preserve the assets of our village centres. Specifically that means nature and tranquility. That's what draws the tourists here.
“Sustainability also means setting a good example. This is why we have spoken with all of our suppliers to ask how they can help us in our quest for sustainability,” Ridderbos continues. “This isn't a purchasing meeting, but a meeting about the things we are working on as a municipality. If a company wants to continue being one of our suppliers, it will have to take specific actions in this respect between now and 2015. Weststrate (a trusted Satino Partner for many years, ed.) has responded to this emphatically.”
Enthusiasm
“That's when the name Van Houtum Papier was brought up here,” says Ridderbos. “We said we would like to take a look around there.
So we joined Weststrate and drove to Swalmen, where account manager Dave Timmermans gave us a tour of the company. Something you always struggle with as a buyer is that you cannot properly assess sustainability by means of quality marks and the like. You need to know more. By spending just one day at Van Houtum Papier, we were able to see the whole Cradle to Cradle story for ourselves. The enthusiasm was evident throughout the company, which is a sign that it's truly sustainable.
“Ultimately we came to an arrangement with Weststrate. One of the propositions of the concept is that the Satino Multi Mirror will reduce the amount of paper consumed. This will make the product budget neutral even if it is more expensive, with less work for the cleaners and fewer equipment failures as other advantages.
“Personally I really enjoy working with Van Houtum Papier. That is important too: we are here to help the public, and we try to do that in a fun way. This is why we have made the toilet paper story very visual. We have calculated how much toilet paper is used at our town hall with its 200 employees plus visitors. It amounts to 96 kilometres of toilet paper and 33 kilometres of paper hand towels a year! An added advantage is that at least those quantities of paper are now Cradle to Cradle.”
The users within the Municipality of Veere were surveyed by means of a questionnaire:
On the picture: Geert Ridderbos, Head of Internal Services & Computerisation for the Municipality of Veere (left) and Albert Meij, Concept Manager Washroom of Van Houtum Papier (right)