| FWE’S GREENHOUSE REDUCTION

LESS LIGHT IS A BRIGHT IDEA! – FWE will save up to 45% on energy in comparison to a typical building built just 10 years ago with the combination of natural lighting sky panels and the use of HEF and LED High Efficiency lighting fixtures rather than metal Halide and florescent lamps. In addition, installed throughout 100% of the entire facility are individually controlled motion detection sensors. Automated on/off lighting is key in energy cost savings, only lighting areas of activity. No worries about turning off the lights at the end of the day or over the weekend, they take care of themselves. In all, FWE will trim its CO2 emissions by1,000 pounds a year with this newer lighting solution.

RUNNING HOT AND COLD – As much as 50% of the energy used in buildings goes to heating and cooling. Making smart decisions about heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems can have a big effect on energy consumption and producing greenhouse gases. FWE converted to High Efficiency air handling units and programmable thermostats to reduce heating and air conditioning cost. In the summer, FWE volunteers for brown out periods as a corporate citizen. In the winter, FWE recycles heat created from manufacturing process within our factory. This process of capturing, recycle, and re-use of heat is equivalent to providing 100%of the heat needed for a typical 50,000 Sq/Ft (4,645 Sq/Meter) building set at 67F (19.4C).

WORK ENVIRONMENT AND AIR QUALITY– According to the EPA, indoor air quality is one of the top five environmental health risks of our time. In general, factories are associated with manufacturing products and as long as the factories are working, pollution is being created. Therefore, virtually all premises have a pollution exposure. In the process of crafting FWE products, large laser machinery is utilized, requiring certain gases to effectively cut metal. Management wanted to eliminate the need to introduce unwanted elements in the manufacturing environment. The answer was “thin air;” separating abundant nitrogen that exists in the air we breathe every day. From inside the factory, FWE filters air an average of 800,000 cf/Hour down to the nano level of 0.2 microns. This safe utilization of nitrogen is then used during manufacturing in laser machinery as a shielding agent, meeting demands of manufacturing while the balance of the clean filtered air is directly vented in to the work environment while the nitrogen is recycled. This safe,environmentally friendly and renewable method of corporate stewardship is a significant contribution towards sustainability. This solution also contributes to clean cuts on steel, eliminating sharp burrs, so that additional grinding (deburring) is no longer needed required. That saves energy, labor, money and time. It also reduces the risk of injury. In one day FWE filters & recycles over 9 million cubic feet of air, equivalent to exchanging air in a 100,000 sq ft factory 4.6 times a day.

REDUCE  – As most manufacturing facilities know, paperwork is an essential requirement to keep production organized and timely. Leading edge factory techniques have given birth to an in-house hyper “E-manufacturing environment” at FWE that has reduced paperwork and drawings in the factory by 85%. While no organization is completely paperless, FWE has taken considerable effort in reducing its paper needs to only a fraction of what would have otherwise been used in a traditional manufacturing facility. In the front of the house, reports, forms, catalogs, brochures, faxes and all the other documentation that was traditionally committed to paper are now done in various electronic formats and available on a number of platforms. This has an added benefit of keeping everyone on the same versions and having access to that data in multiple locations, even on the road. FWE is currently experimenting with going paperless with warranty registration and one of our product-line manuals, to make the case for other product manuals in the future. This process has already reduced paper consumption by nearly 2,500 pounds a year, the equivalent of 25 trees and 5,000 gallons of water.

REUSE – E-Waste in the form of PCs, servers, monitors, cell phones and other consumer technologies are reloaded and reallocated through a method of life cycle management that takes the latest and most powerful technologies, required in some departments, and reprovision them throughout various departments where needed. Where some organizations lease and renew user interfaces and desktops, with a new inventory every 3 to 4 years, FWE’s life cycle management can triple or quadruple the life of certain technologies. In this way, equipment can be used for a decade or more by carefully selecting and maintaining equipment and moving it throughout the organization for as long as it can. Desktops, servers, drives and other components are then cleaned and reloaded for a final time to be given to employees, sold on line via popular “E-account” websites or donated to organizations such as Horizon for the Blind where they continue to be of use and avoid the landfill. This reduction in office machines is then multiplied in the reduction of waste in the landfills of those very items.

RECYCLE PROGRAM– Not only does our “reduce efforts” reduce the amount of paper consumed, but it also has the “remainder” cycle program benefit of recycling (ie; 85% eliminated and remaining 15% recycled) for an efficient lower GHG foot print.

VIRTUALIZATION OF THE DATA CENTER – Virtualization of the Data Center has reduced the physical server and rack footprint in the IT rooms, by taking several physical servers and consolidating their operating system onto a Virtual Machine (VM). The need for 12 physical servers can be reduced by 3 to 4 times. Remote workers can access everything by logging into their Virtual Desktops. All of this reduces the amount of energy required to maintain all desktops and IT services, reduces the energy to cool down the server rooms, reduces E-Waste at the end of a PC or server’s life cycle, and again, important (for the bottom line), big savings in reduced cost of equipment.

PACKAGING, RECYCLING AND “OUT-OF-THE-BOX” – Packaging is predominantly made of recyclable corrugated board. Corrugated offers a robust environmentally friendly packaging to deliver products to market. FWE has worked with vendors to reduce the amount of packaging needed to safely ship components and products we use in FWE manufactured products. In addition, over the years, FWE has experimented with the reduction of our packing materials to safe guard the environment while assuring product to market requirements. In addition to corrugated board, FWE recycles containers, boxes, paper goods, wood, shipping skids and metal. FWE also uses no inks or dyes in its packaging and avoids the potential for a negative environmental or health impact. Via grass root employee “Out-Of-The-Box” efforts, we are also looking to recycling as a way of giving back to the communities in which we live and work. Approximately 80% of solid-waste packing materials are part of a recycle or a reuse programs. In addition, recycle bins are scattered throughout the facility for convenience to collect aluminum cans and plastic bottles to be recycled and those funds are given to charitable and civic causes such as schools and cancer organizations, and the American Legion’s Legacy Scholarship trust fund to benefit children who have lost a parent.

CAN AN IDEA GROW? – FWE has given or planted over 350 trees through its effort of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and has reduced the company’s overall impact on the environment through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions outside the four walls of the factory.

IN ADDITION… FWE encourages employees to contribute to the organic garden located onsite of the manufacturing facility. The garden produces vegetables and fruits consumed both at home and work. Not only do these plants absorb and reduce GHS, the onsite garden reduces the food mile multiplier of GHG typical of farm to market to home incurred by transportation. The average of of which is about 1500 food miles per item.