OUR ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
MEASURE, COMPENSATE, REDUCE AND ALWAYS GET BETTER.
Calculating our CO2e emissions was a suitable method for us to start by making sustainability measurable. Last year, in collaboration with ClimatePartner, we calculated our greenhouse gas emissions both for ourselves as a company and for all of our products in accordance with the guidelines of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and offset them through internationally recognized climate protection projects. But that's not enough for us. That's why we want to take new and even more transparent paths this year.
JUST BEING CLIMATE NEUTRAL IS NOT ENOUGH.
With the calculations and the compensation, we received the "climate neutral" logo from ClimatePartner. Since this is too misleading for us and many companies now carry this logo to show that they are compensating for their CO2e emissions but are not contributing anything to a long-term reduction, we thought about it again. For us, this process was always just a step towards taking responsibility for our impact on the environment and the climate. We now see it in a more differentiated way. Looking at our own supply chain and taking long-term effective reduction measures ourselves is now the much more decisive path for us.
That's why we have decided to continue calculating our emissions, but independently using an external tool that not only calculates CO2e emissions, but also takes into account other relevant environmental indicators such as land use, ocean acidification, air pollution and a few other aspects. This gives us significantly more information about our ecological footprint as a manufacturing company and allows us to better compare ingredients, packaging and transport routes and make better decisions.
HOW HIGH ARE OUR CO2e EMISSIONS?
Climate neutrality does not mean that no emissions are generated in our value chain. Like any other manufacturing company, we also emit CO2e emissions, no matter how ecologically and economically we operate. We are currently offsetting our emissions 100% through several international climate protection projects.
Our carbon footprint in 2022 was 454.97 t CO2. Of this, 36.41 t CO2 were generated in the company in 2021 and 418.56 t CO2 in the supply chain of our products (as of December 2022, will be updated). The company footprint is only calculated after the end of the year. The product footprint, on the other hand, is calculated every year based on planned sales figures and offset against the number of products actually sold at the end of the year.
OUR CO2e EMISSIONS
SCOPE1: 0%
Includes all emissions directly generated by, for example, company fleets and facilities – both of which we do not have.
SCOPE2: 9.2%
Lists emissions caused by purchased energy, such as electricity and gas.
SCOPE3: 90.8%
Includes indirect emissions, such as our employees' commutes, home offices and business trips. Our entire supply chain, i.e. the emissions from our products, also fall into Scope 3.
THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF OUR PRODUCTS
In the area of product footprint, also known as product carbon footprint (PCF for short), significantly more aspects are taken into account. This is why higher emissions can also be found there.
The product footprint was calculated using the "cradle-to-customer plus end-of-life" approach. Emissions were taken into account along the following life cycle phases: extraction and pre-processing of raw materials and packaging, production and delivery of the product to our customers, and relevant disposal emissions from the product and packaging. The use of the products by our customers was excluded because we cannot measure it to the end and cannot collect any data on it.
Our company carbon footprint is also taken into account as “common emissions”, since without the involvement of our employees no products could be manufactured.
All emissions from the product footprint are attributable to our supply chain and therefore to Scope 3.
WE COMPENSATE OUR CO2e EMISSIONS
What does “compensate” mean and what does “climate neutral” actually mean? By definition, companies, processes and products are climate neutral if their CO2e emissions have been calculated and offset through internationally recognized climate protection projects. The offsetting of emissions is referred to as “compensation”.
In 2022, we emitted 454.97 t CO2e through our business activities and our products.
Climate neutrality does not mean that no emissions are generated in our value chain. We also emit CO2e emissions, like any other manufacturing company, no matter how ecologically and economically we operate. We are currently offsetting 100% of our emissions through several international climate protection projects.
FACT CHECK: WHAT DOES CO2e STAND FOR?
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the only greenhouse gas that drives global warming. There are many other gases that also contribute significantly to global warming. In addition to CO2, the gases methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and the so-called F-gases: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) have a direct influence on climate change.
For easier calculation and better comparison in terms of their greenhouse potential, all greenhouse gases are quantified in a single measurement: CO2 equivalents (CO2 equivalence, or CO2e for short).
WHY COMPENSATE AT ALL?
Our primary goal and that of many other companies, organizations, countries, institutions and probably also many private individuals is a future fit for our grandchildren. To achieve this, we must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial era, protect the climate and achieve actual climate neutrality as soon as possible in order to prevent tipping points and the associated climatic and meteorological processes that we cannot predict.
Offsetting our CO2e emissions was never the last step for us. Reduction is much more important to us. However, since reduction measures understandably take longer and take several months, sometimes even years, we wanted to take another, short-term step with offsetting in order to take more responsibility for our emissions now. Our focus for concrete reduction measures is now on our own supply chain (insetting) rather than on offsetting solely through external climate protection projects (offsetting).
You can find out how many emissions we have offset to date and which projects we have used to offset them directly on the ClimatePartner website .
HOW DO WE REDUCE OUR EMISSIONS?
Fortunately, our company footprint is already very small, which is why we no longer have great potential for savings here. Nevertheless, we continue to work on raising awareness among our employees about how to use resources and energy in the office.
The greatest savings potential is in our products: almost 90% of our total emissions are generated there. The most significant factors here are the raw materials, with their complex production and transport, as well as our glass bottles as primary packaging.
Our reductions so far:
Our next steps:
We are very proud of our constantly growing product range - but we are also constantly learning from it. We therefore regularly check all planned and existing products. The emission factors of individual ingredients play an important role in this. We will therefore replace ingredients with a very high CO2e footprint in the long term and thus continuously contribute to reducing our product carbon footprint.
For a long time, we firmly believed that a system in which we put our glass bottles into a closed loop, wash them and refill them would be the most ecologically sensible solution. However, our current calculations of life cycle assessments of the possible options are increasingly showing that reusing our bottles does not meet this requirement. That is why we are currently examining various other packaging and refill options. Our goal is to find primary and secondary packaging that is the best possible solution for us both from an ecological point of view and in terms of application.
Our most commonly used raw material is aloe vera. Since aloe vera simply cannot be grown locally in Germany and there have been few suppliers in Europe who have met our sustainability requirements, we sourced this raw material from controlled organic cultivation in Mexico, China and the USA until the end of 2021. After extensive research, we are very happy to have now found a supplier in Europe who meets our guidelines. We have been sourcing our aloe vera raw material directly from Spain since the beginning of 2022. Our idea is to implement sustainability projects together through long-term partnerships with aloe vera farms in order to help where there is still room for improvement in terms of sustainability in cultivation.
This year, the Aloe Vera raw material from Spain will be included in all of our products. This will enable us to reduce our emissions by 13.58%!