In the "Environment" area, the focus in recent years has been on our packaging material. The aim was not only to use renewable resources by switching from fossil-based plastics to plant-based plastics, but also to reduce the carbon footprint of our packaging.

In this context, the fossil-based plastic layer of the composite packaging of all our Immergut products should be replaced by a plant-based layer by the end of 2022. The same applies to the lids: here, too, only plant-based plastic should be used. 
We have achieved this goal since June 2022! For all Immergut items, both the packaging material and the lids have been changed, significantly reducing the carbon footprint.

In terms of sustainable action, the topic of waste disposal has been at the centre of our attention in the area of economy for quite some time. Here we have set ourselves the goal of reducing our total disposal volume per 1,000 units produced in the long term. 

This is important in two respects: On the one hand, high waste volumes also result in high disposal costs - an important economic factor. On the other hand, the fundamental avoidance of waste is an important aspect - especially against the background of the generally large waste of resources.

Looking back, we have achieved significant successes in this area since 2020. Starting with 16.39 kg of waste per 1,000 units produced, we were able to reduce this by almost 3 kg in the first year through various internal measures. We have thus clearly exceeded our target of a maximum of 15.5 kg. We wanted to build on this initial success in 2021 and have once again made the topic of waste disposal a focus in the area of economy. This time, the target was a maximum of 13.0 kg per 1,000 units produced. By the end of the year, we had not only achieved this target, but also significantly exceeded it. Thus, in December we were able to record an average total disposal quantity of only 11.74 kg per 1,000 units produced.

A great success - economically and ecologically!

We now need to reduce this level again slightly and then also maintain it in the long term! Therefore, our target for 2022: max. 11.5 kg total disposal quantity per 1,000 units produced.

In the area of social issues, we have been focusing on occupational safety since 2020. Here we have set ourselves the goal of reducing our lost time due to accidents in relation to the total hours worked. The key figure monitored for this purpose describes the percentage of days lost due to accidents. It thus indicates how long an employee was unable to return to work after an accident at work. Indirectly, it allows conclusions to be drawn about the severity of the accidents. The lower this rate is, the shorter the periods of absence were and the less severe the accidents were.

Looking back, we can now also report initial successes here. We started at the end of 2019 with a rate of 0.2705%. Our goal was to reduce this to 0.250% in 2020. Unfortunately, we were not yet able to achieve this in the first step, so we ended the year with a default rate of 0.2804%. Therefore, it was a matter of course for us to take up the topic of occupational safety again in 2021 and to pursue it consistently. The internal measures we implemented paid off here, so that we were able to reduce the absenteeism rate to 0.2163%. This means that we have not only reached our target of 0.250%, but have even clearly exceeded it!

A great sign of occupational safety in action!