Corporate Social Responsibility of Prodways Group

Prodways Group’s CSR commitments: an active and ambitious policy! 

In 2018, PRODWAYS GROUP deepened the assessment of its challenges and risks related to the Group’s CSR by conducting a materiality analysis in order to anticipate the expectations, risks and opportunities related to the challenges of sustainable development and our responsibilities towards our stakeholders.  

This analysis was conducted in several stages:  

• carrying out sectoral benchmarks, 
• identification of key issues based on internal resources, including risk mapping, 

• the organization of internal workshops with operational staff to validate the relevance of the issues, 
• the collection of CSR data by the Group’s General Management.  

This work made it possible to identify and prioritize the Group’s environmental, social and societal challenges based on: stakeholder expectations; their impact on the Group’s activity.  

The rating of these risks has brought out three levels of potential risks: moderate, important, capital. PRODWAYS GROUP has evaluated its stakes as well as the contribution of its mission and its social and environmental initiatives to the 2030 sustainable development program adopted by the UN in 2015.  

This program is composed of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs have become the new global framework of priorities and their translation for companies by the Global Compact, the WBCSD and the GRI constitutes a new, comprehensive and sustainable CSR reference framework within which the Group wishes to operate. 

Since 2022, the CSR policy of the Prodways group has been revitalized in order to respond more quickly and ambitiously to the environmental and societal challenges of today and tomorrow: 

• New indicators have been introduced
• Analyses of our environmental impacts have been launched
• Ambitious action plans have been decided 

3D printing: A production method that meets the challenges of sustainable development 

3D printing is considered an ecological technology thanks to its additive process, which allows the use of only the raw material necessary to manufacture a part. It is also a vector of relocation of industrial activities.  

By the nature of its activity, PRODWAYS GROUP contributes to the reduction of the consumption of raw materials and to the reconstruction of a social and sustainable industrial ecosystem in France.  

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, consists in creating physical objects by superimposing different layers of material. This manufacturing process is mostly computer-assisted via a digital file (this is called computer-aided design, CAD).

Once the object is finalized by the operator on this file, it is sent to a specific software which cuts it into slices and sends it to the printer which deposits or solidifies (according to the materials and techniques used) the material layer by layer until obtaining the final part.  

With the 3D printing technique, objects are formed by adding material, which allows the user to free himself from the constraints and environmental impacts associated with the manufacture or use of a casting, a sheet of metal or a block of metal.  

3D printing differs from traditional manufacturing techniques (machining, sculpting, milling, drilling, etc.) which rely on blocks of material (steel, aluminum, titanium, etc.) and processes aimed at eliminating all parts deemed unnecessary to obtain the final shape of the part (this is called subtractive manufacturing). With the 3D printing technique, objects are formed by adding material, which allows the user to free himself from the constraints and environmental impacts related to the manufacture or use of a casting, a sheet of metal or a block of metal.

As an example, the Rapid Additive Forging technology of PRODWAYS GROUP allows to quickly manufacture titanium blanks close to the geometry of the final part which then undergoes a simple finishing machining. It allows, moreover, to significantly reduce the proportion of material lost in the form of chips which can represent up to 95% of the initial metal block with the traditional machining processes. By offering the possibility of printing custom-made parts on demand, manufacturers and consumers can repair objects that would otherwise have been discarded due to the lack of a part that is no longer available.  

3D printing also enables the relocation of production sites as close as possible to customers, thus reducing transport-related emissions. Thanks to the new possibilities offered, this manufacturing process is appreciated by all industrial sectors, and in particular by the aeronautics industry for the rapid prototyping of parts with complex geometries, and by the medical industry for the manufacture of several different parts on the same production line.

In most of its activities, the Group positions itself as a designer and assembler and has set up processes for recycling materials, in particular the powders and liquid resins used. Its activities therefore do not directly involve any major environmental risks.