Maluquer de Centroamérica S.A. participate in the Green Growth Program V Edition, for the granting of productive seed capital, which is a non-refundable fund to invest in processes of
environmentally friendly productive transformation. The Program is part of the Cooperation Agreements between PROCOMER, CRUSA and the IDB.
Maluquer has been a company that for more than 30 years has focused on offering its customers innovative, quality products in compliance with the most demanding safety standards. As part of the continuous improvement, it was necessary to take the next step; focus efforts towards upgrading in the environmental area with the motivation of consolidating a business model that is sustainable, guaranteeing the balance between economic growth, care for the environment and social welfare.
Back in 2015, the Director of Operations of the company, Esther Vallcaneras Avila,
received the approval from the Board of Directors for the implementation and certification of the ISO 14001: 2015 Standard and expand its management system, however, due to different eventualities, the project was postponed several times. Inspired by a 20/20 vision, Esther planned her year 2020 to achieve 80% of the implementation of the Standard and counting a budget for the change of the 10 air conditioning units within a period of 8 years, foreseeing that by 2030 already those units had to be out of order.
The COVID-19 pandemic arrives in Costa Rica and the directive of the Board of Directors was to stop all spending, therefore, once again the goal that Maluquer had an environmental management system had to stay on hold. Overcome the moment of frustration, the director gets to know PROCOMER’s Green Growth Program and decides to propose to the Board the application in the V Edition.
The company participated in Category C, which is Mixed Projects for obtaining certifications and for environmental innovation of processes or products (goods and services). The name of the project is Aromas and Flavors for export environmentally managed under the ISO 14001: 2015 standard, which consists of implementing and certifying the environmental management system under the ISO 14001: 2015 standard and modernizing the air conditioning system to eliminate the emission of gases that deplete the ozone layer of the HCFC type Hydrochlorofluorocarbons; ensuring the productive and competitive quality.
The success of obtaining these funds was due to teamwork, the support of all the employees and the Board of Directors of Maluquer. Additionally, the company had the advice of Andres Caravaca from PRYEM and Gabriela Couto from MarketPlaza with whom Esther Vallcaneras managed to make a very good team, thoroughly investigating the issue of refrigerant gases, and achieving a complete and explicit form.
The Green Growth Platform aims to promote production transformation processes that improve the environmental sustainability profile of micro, small and medium-sized companies and with this their export profile. For this V Edition 95 companies applied, the fund was assigned only 36.
Right now, the company is working quite hard, complying with the schedule and budget approved by PROCOMER and supervised by FUNDES. The year 2020 closed with the installation of 4 of the air conditioning units and with the review and update of all the documentation regarding the standard that had been generated since the beginning of the implementation (2015).
https://maluquercr.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Certificado-Maluquer.pdf
