Not only since the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 has it been clear that humanity must reduce gigantic amounts of greenhouse gases in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. A goal that we support with a view to an intact nature and a future worth living! And one that we want to be measured against in concrete terms: This is where the right based on science company comes into play. The experts have developed a scientifically sound method for calculating the complex climate impact of companies. It is based on the question: What would happen if the whole world had the same impact on the climate as the company being analyzed? By how many degrees would our planet warm up by 2100? The result for Kneipp: by 1.5 degrees¹. This means that Kneipp is Paris-compliant in Scope 1 and 2.
Climate protection at Kneipp
Balcony or Bali? Train or highway? Organic or best price? In times of man-made climate change, such questions are regularly on many people's minds. After all, what long seemed rather abstract is now having a very real impact, even on our doorstep: be it floods like the devastating flood in the Ahr valley in 2021, increasingly frequent drought summers, forest fires or, quite simply, wilted roses in our own garden. The climate crisis is already having a very real impact on our lives.
This is leaving more and more people with an oppressive feeling - and increasing their willingness to take a critical look at their own carbon footprint. It's clear that we, as a manufacturing company, are doing our bit. So: What about climate protection at Kneipp? What routes do the ingredients in our cosmetics take? Where does the energy for processing them come from? And does Kneipp actually manufacture so-called climate-neutral products?
Clear commitment:
Kneipp is committed to the 1.5 degree target
Briefly explained:
What are scopes?
How many CO₂ emissions does a company cause - and in which areas? The internationally recognized scope classification is used to make this as comprehensible as possible. Scope 1 emissions come from sources that a company is directly responsible for or controls: for example, from the heating system of a building or the vehicle fleet; Scope 2 includes indirect greenhouse gas emissions - such as from the purchase of electricity. Scope 3, on the other hand, includes all indirect emissions along the entire value chain, including those generated by suppliers or transport service providers, for example.
Climate neutrality and compensation:
Greenwashing or a genuine objective?
Kneipp has been working for many years to reduce its CO₂ emissions across all scopes. Our goal is local climate neutrality (in Scope 1 and 2). Important: When we talk about climate neutrality, this always refers to the actual reduction of emissions, to our "Mission Zero".
However, it is still hardly possible to completely reduce CO₂ emissions along the value chain to zero. Whenever emissions cannot (yet) be avoided, the topic of offsetting comes into play for us: this involves supporting projects that bind CO₂ in the air or prevent it from getting there in the first place. The spectrum ranges from reforestation and the renaturation of moors to the promotion of renewable energies.
We started offsetting our CO₂ emissions very early on in 2012 and cooperate with the recognized company ClimatePartner. However, we do not refer to this as "climate-neutral", but explicitly as CO₂- or climate-compensated. That may not sound quite as good, but it is transparent.
Since 2021, Kneipp and all its locations worldwide have been 100% climate-compensated in Scope 1 and Scope 2. By 2030, we want to actually become climate-neutral in both scopes, i.e. no longer emit any CO₂ emissions locally.
Does Kneipp offer climate-neutral products?
You've probably seen the word climate neutral on one product or another. You won't find this term on Kneipp products. This is because not only our own emissions as a manufacturer play a role here (Scope 1 and 2), but also those that arise in the supply chain and therefore in Scope 3 (e.g. raw materials for the product). In other words, the manufacture of products generally results in unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions. The only option currently available is offsetting, but this does not make a product climate-neutral.
However, the fact that a climate-neutral supply chain still hardly seems feasible today does not mean that we are not working on it. For example, we are identifying CO₂-intensive raw materials, looking for alternatives and reducing Scope 3 emissions step by step.
Example projects in terms of climate protection:
How we save energy and reduce emissions
For us, one thing is clear: where there are no alternatives, offsetting greenhouse gas emissions makes sense in any case. At the same time, we place the greatest focus on reduction: we must reduce the emission of harmful greenhouse gases wherever possible. Below, we present some of the building blocks from the complex energy-saving puzzle that Kneipp is putting together piece by piece. Measures from all four fields of action of our sustainability strategy play a role here. From Product and Process to Planet and People, many activities also have an impact on climate protection within the company.
Incidentally, we are also making a concrete contribution to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. They have also specifically included climate protection in their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs for short) - in SDG 13 (Climate action).
Of course, not all the plants that Kneipp needs to make its products grow just around the corner. Nevertheless, our colleagues act according to the principle "as regional as possible, as international as necessary" when purchasing. We therefore source many of the raw materials used in our products from Germany or other European countries, which in turn has a positive effect on transportation emissions. As far as our product packaging is concerned, more than 90 percent of the packaging material used already comes from Germany and neighboring European countries.
In addition to reducing transportation routes for raw materials and packaging materials, their conscious selection also plays an important role in climate protection. Would you have known? Trees absorb CO₂ from the air. German forests alone relieve our atmosphere of around 62 million tons of CO₂ per year². Reason enough for us to increasingly avoid using fresh wood fibers in our outer packaging and switch to recycled materials or more rapidly renewable raw materials such as cardboard with grass fibers. But we have even more figures for you: The production of one tonne of plastic generates an average of almost two tons of CO₂³. For several years now, we have therefore been working intensively on packaging our products with less or no plastic and making bottles, tubes and the like recyclable. This also pays off in terms of climate protection.
We have been using daylight and presence-dependent lighting control on the production lines (and also in the offices) for many years. This means that the lighting goes out when it is bright enough in the rooms or when there are no people at the workplace. In addition, we use energy-efficient LED technology in various work areas, for example in offices, assembly and escape route lighting.
Kneipp switched to hydroelectric power back in 2010. As part of the renovation of a section of our roofs, we also installed a photovoltaic system to produce climate-friendly solar power.
This is combined with a heat pump. This saves almost 38 tons of CO₂ per year.
We will also soon be commissioning an electric steam generator so that we can further reduce our natural gas consumption.
Over the past few years, we have implemented various heat recovery measures - including the installation of a compressed air compressor system, which allows the waste heat from production to be fed directly into the heating system. We also use the waste heat generated in the compressor room to preheat our hot water. Measures such as these help to keep natural gas consumption at almost the same level despite increasing production times.
In addition, modern building ventilation systems were installed back in 2015, resulting in significant increases in energy efficiency.
In 2022, the company agreement on mobile working at Kneipp was amended: It now stipulates that our employees may work between 40 and 80 percent of their working hours (depending on the department and the de facto possibility of mobile working) from home. What does this have to do with protecting the climate? Quite a lot, actually: because those who work from home don't have to commute - so they don't cause any traffic-related emissions.
Sources/notes:
¹Base year 2019
² Stiftung Unternehmen Wald: How much carbon dioxide is stored by trees and forests, retrieved on 22.04.2024
DIW Berlin: On the road to climate neutrality, retrieved on 08.08.2024