Carbon offsetting is often regarded with suspicion or written off as ‘greenwashing’. Well, sometimes that’s true – for example, when companies purchase carbon credits without worrying further about our climate. But that’s not how we roll at DEBATIN. Of course, we do buy into carbon-offset schemes, in cooperation with natureOffice. Indeed, since 2017 we’ve been offsetting all our Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, and will continue to do so as long as it remains economically justifiable. After all, as a responsible business in the packaging industry, we are also expected to offset our unavoidable carbon emissions. However, we don’t believe that our efforts should stop there.
We’re familiar with the mantra of carbon neutrality, particularly applicable for SMEs. Namely, we try to: Avoid. Reduce. Offset. In that order. And we’ve made a lot of progress since we embarked on this path in 2017. In particular, we’ve got a lot better at Step 1: Avoid.
How did we achieve that? For one thing, we invested in technology to monitor our energy usage. Our new measuring instruments show us how much electricity we’re currently using and where, which in turn enables us to take targeted action and reduce our consumption. We also provide an online “CO2 calculator” for our customers, which gives them hard numbers for how much they can improve their carbon footprint by using our sustainable products rather than conventional products made from new film.
To make the most of our investment, we also formed an energy team. This consists of employees from our controlling, technical, and building services departments, supported by Jörg Keilbach, our sustainability expert and process manager.
Transformation towards more sustainability, however, is not a one-stop shop. It’s a long journey on which you have to take your bearings repeatedly. That’s why we’ve joined the sustainability network established by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, a part of the national “Corporate Network for Climate Protection”.
Although only recently formed, the network already boasts over 600 companies as members – including, of course, DEBATIN. We’re looking forward to a fruitful exchange, inspiration, motivation, and sharing our own wisdom born of experience.
We’ve also taken the initiative and started making moves towards generating our own energy from regenerative energy sources. We’d like to transition towards solar power and geothermal energy. However, these big projects are not the whole picture. Many tiny actions are also making a difference.
For example, we’ve recently opened a mobile bicycle repair workshop to encourage employees to cycle to work. We also train our apprentices to be “energy scouts” so that they can help us identify and eliminate areas and processes where energy is wasted.
Last but not least, the best news of all: we’ve reduced our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 20 % year-on-year. That’s great!… but we can still do better. After all, sustainability is a journey. We’ll probably never reach the end of it. What’s important is that we keep putting one foot in front of the other. That’s the only way we can achieve the transformation we need to ensure quality of life for generations to come.
