Reduction and offsetting

We have identified climate protection as a key issue for us and continue to work towards our major goal of being climate-neutral by 2030.

Our strategy for achieving this goal is: Analyse – Reduce – Compensate. This means first and foremost reducing emissions and, if reduction is not possible, offsetting them.

CO2-reduction

We act daily in accordance with the requirements of our ISO 14001:2015 environmental management system by endeavouring to reduce climate-relevant emissions and consume fewer resources.

We reduce our CO₂ emissions by using the latest generation of lorries, among other things. Another measure is IT-supported route optimisation and truck utilisation. By efficiently bundling consignments and planning routes, we send fewer vehicles on the road, avoid empty kilometres and thus reduce the overall consumption of our fleet. Driver training for particularly energy-efficient driving also leads to consumption savings.

Shifting transports from road to rail continues to have the greatest impact. This is currently difficult due to the lack of connections to (South) Eastern Europe, but also in view of our customers’ requirements, which cannot be met by rail.

We also endeavour to raise the awareness of all our stakeholders for ecological action. In addition to complying with statutory environmental protection regulations, we are committed to the sustainable use of resources and also encourage our employees to adopt environmentally friendly behaviour. To this end, we offer them (e-)bike leasing, reimbursement of public transport costs for travelling to work and free charging of electric vehicles (using solar power), among other things.

CO2 offsetting

In addition to the reduction, we offset part of the emissions generated through our 50/50 climate initiative together with some of our customers. We first calculate the transport emissions and then offset them through a climate protection project. We cover half of the offsetting costs for every tonne of CO₂ produced, while our customers bear the other half.

As part of this, we support the Gold Standard project “Uganda: energy-efficient cookstoves” by First Climate, a pioneer in emissions trading. The distribution of improved cookstoves to households in Uganda leads to reduced deforestation, less harmful smoke and generates fuel savings of 35% to 50%. In addition to reducing emissions by 750,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year, this project – like all First Climate projects – offers a wide range of additional benefits for people and the environment.

Within the company, our administration has also been climate-neutral since 2011 by offsetting the generated emissions.

Carbon Footprint

The basis of our ecological actions is a precise assessment of our emissions: We have our corporate carbon footprint (CCF) audited annually in accordance with DIN EN 14064:2012 and our transport carbon footprint (TCF) in accordance with DIN EN 16258:2013.

The sum of direct and indirect emissions is required for a standardised calculation of the greenhouse gas emissions of a transport service. As a transport company, we naturally also include the indirect emissions of our transport service providers (Scope 3) when calculating the footprint.

Most GHG emissions occur in Scope 3 and include 99.8% of emissions caused by transport. In the area of administration, employee commuting accounts for the largest share of GHG emissions. Commuting by car is falling continuously as our employees are increasingly travelling to work by public transport and the bicycles we subsidise. Business trips are made by train whenever possible, otherwise by (electric) car. We try to avoid flights completely.