Altyor, New Member of the UN Global Compact
Altyor is now a member of the United Nations Global Compact. This voluntary commitment confirms our desire to continue to…
read moreOur position in the industrial sector pushes us to think differently and to raise awareness among our customers about our environmental impact both near and far of each product and activity. To this end, Altyor has implemented an eco-responsible approach to control and reduce its environmental footprint, called Design for Tomorrow.
Through Design for Tomorrow, our expert engineers make proposals and eco-design our customers’ products to reduce their carbon footprint and imagine their end-of-life.
All of our teams are involved: : from our R&D department, through the choice of well-thought-out methods, to our purchasing department, via the sourcing of suitable partners, to our logistics department, in terms of our carbon impact.
Altyor has been in existence for almost 30 years. Our experience has enabled us to build a solid base of electronic (buttons, LEDs, etc.) and mechanical (screws, materials, etc.) references that we know to be reliable and long-lasting. These are also standard designs, such as the clipping process, which have been approved by our teams and have become Altyor standards. Within the knowledge management platform called Ask, we bring together all the bricks mastered by Altyor and made available to our customers. We also select recent technologies and take into account availability time as an important criterion for our electronic components (via Silicon Expert) in order to avoid rapid product obsolescence.
At Altyor, we systematically analyse product durability to ensure optimal product or material ageing and resistance through MTBF (mean time between failure) electronic board reliability calculations and qualification tests. For example, we endurance test products to ensure that they can withstand climatic or usage conditions.
We also design firmware that can be updated remotely to avoid product obsolescence. This allows our customers to upgrade their product, extend its life span or facilitate its return (refurbishment, repair).
Finally, at the design stage, our mechanical engineering department selects technical solutions for easy repair and recycling. For this, a product must be easily dismantled, with clips, screws, avoiding glue or ultrasound welding. For repair, easy access to the test tips through the battery door will be ideal. For recycling, it will be easier and will improve the quality of the material if the product is not in bi-material, does not have a label and paints.
One of the objectives of this axis is as follows: the less energy the product consumes, the better your energy balance will be.
We therefore select low-energy technologies by favouring, depending on the use, low-power radio protocols such as LoRa, ZigBee or BLE. We also analyse and seek optimised management of operating and standby modes. This involves controlling connectivity by avoiding sending data too often when it is not necessary and integrating sensors (such as the accelerometer) that will allow the object to remain in standby mode when it is not in use.
Our experts have acquired expertise in the choice of power supplies (mains, battery) and converters or regulators to control leakage currents and optimise supply voltages.
Whenever possible, Altyor’s teams promote battery-free energy sources such as solar power or mechanical force (EnOcean), as we do for our own products in our smart home and smart building specialist subsidiary, NodOn.
We seek to select materials and manufacturing processes with a reduced environmental impact. We prioritise the use of recycled materials: recycled cardboard for packaging, recycled plastic for products, etc. Altyor has created its own recycled plastic sector, enabling us to inject technical materials and different colours.
Reducing the carbon footprint also means reducing the weight of the product or packaging by reducing its thickness, for example.
Sobriety also involves thinking about each packaging (primary, secondary or tertiary packaging) with the same vision: to reduce the packaging and its non-essential elements (foam, instructions, etc.).
Intelligent electronic design also allows for greater sobriety thanks to the optimisation of firmware, the right sizing of batteries or the choice of component packages with reduced environmental impact.
Altyor has therefore created two circular economy loops according to its customers’ needs.
The Refurbishing loop aims to refurbish a deteriorated or no longer used product by repairing, cleaning or changing damaged parts. Once the product is functional again, it is put into a new life cycle, either as a donation to associations or for remarketing.
The Recycling loop aims to recover the product, dismantle it and revalue the materials. These materials are then reused to manufacture either the same products (in a closed loop) or new products (in an open loop). By 2021, nearly 70% of the plastic used by Altyor was recycled plastic.
Altyor designs eco-friendly products for its customers through its two mechanical and electronic design offices. Throughout the design process, the eco-responsibility of the product is assessed to ensure a reduced environmental footprint. This justification file proves the work done and is provided with recommendations from our Design for Tomorrow team.
It consists of its Life Cycle Assessment, which is the environmental diagnosis of the product as a whole against environmental indicators, and its Design for Tomorrow Index, which rates the product against eco-design criteria.
This eco-design justification file is submitted and reviewed at 3 stages during product development:
Life cycle assessment is the starting point for understanding the environmental impact of your product. To understand the ins and outs of what is known as LCA (life cycle assessment), we have put together 14 answers that will shed some light on the subject.
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