Sustainable Development Principles

Our sustainable development policy is based on the following priorities, starting with the most desirable option:

• Prevent / minimise the creation of waste and use of energy
• Re-use waste for its original purpose whenever possible
• Recycle waste for other purposes
• Use waste for secondary purposes, for example energy production
• As a last resort – produce non-recyclable waste

The first priority translates to a long product life cycle, reliability and low power consumption, all of which have been extremely important to Genelec since the birth of the company in 1978. At management level, environmental responsibility is considered to be equally as important as our other business goals, and the whole company supports sustainable development.

Environmental issues are part of the product specifications for our R&D work and design reviews confirm that the set requirements are met. The process starts by defining the requirements from our customers and the regulations from the European Union and the Finnish government, and in practice this means we consider the overall environmental effects of each product. We have processes for the evaluation of materials including product packaging, for environmental impact during manufacturing, and also for after-sales issues such as energy consumption during use, servicing and final recycling.

All Genelec active loudspeakers employ a dedicated power amplifier for each driver, and the amplification is optimised for each driver unit individually, resulting in a balanced design with no wasted power. In our designs the dedicated amplifiers, power supply, crossover filter electronics, protection circuits and drivers are all integrated into the loudspeaker enclosure itself, saving both energy and materials.