Heidelberg Commits to Becoming Climate Neutral by 2030
11 December 2021: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is redoubling its activities in sustainability management. Against the backdrop of the global challenges caused by climate change, and as part of its sustainability strategy, Heidelberg has made a commitment to become climate neutral by 2030. To help achieve this goal, the company has set up an Environmental Social Governance (ESG) panel, which is responsible for developing strategy and defining, implementing, and monitoring the associated measures. The panel is headed by Dr. Eva Boll, who reports directly to the CEO.
“Heidelberg is well aware of its responsibilities regarding the dangers posed by global climate change and affirms the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement,” says the company’s CEO, Rainer Hundsdörfer. “For many years, we have been actively working to gradually minimize harmful emissions and reduce the health and environmental impact of our sites. We have now made a further commitment to ensuring our worldwide production and distribution sites are operating on a climate-neutral basis by 2030, which is earlier than required by legislation.”
To achieve this goal, Heidelberg has already defined several measures and started to roll them out. Initially, the focus is on increasing energy efficiency at all production and distribution sites and supplying these sites with green energy. This alone will lead to a clear reduction in CO2 emissions. The company will then use emissions certificates to offset the residual, unavoidable emissions. Heidelberg subsequently aims to achieve complete climate neutrality at its sites without the use of emissions certificates by 2040 at the latest.
“Heidelberg takes a holistic view of sustainability management and factors in all aspects, such as climate and environmental protection with regard to the production and use of its products, and social criteria,” states the head of ESG at Heidelberg, Dr. Eva Boll. “Over the coming weeks and months, we will be continuing to work step by step on the catalog of criteria and planned measures. By the end of the current financial year, we will create a road map with interim targets for the years ahead. The environment, cost-efficiency, and social responsibility will all go hand in hand.”
