FMT

2020 was a challenging year, with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting all aspects of our daily lives and business operations. As a company that is active internationally, we had to react quickly and responsibly to provide support to all communities we serve.

For Christof Industries, it was a year of increased agility and resilience. We needed to ensure occupational health and safety systems to anticipate, prepare and respond to this exceptional state of emergency. Our local managers and COVID-19 response teams had to implement and continuously adapt precautions to ensure a safe work environment. Additionally, we implemented a new company-wide digital health strategy focusing on occupational health and safety, health promotion and health literacy. In times like these we felt a strong responsibility to provide support where possible.

The breakdown of the global economy highlighted the key flaws in our system and for us returning to business-as-usual is not an option. Instead, we became more resilient and increased our efforts to integrate sustainability into all aspects of our business. It is clearer than ever that the success of any company is reliant on economic, ecological and social factors.

We became a member of the UN Global Compact and UN Women. And the focus on sustainability has also taken shape in our product and service offering. Despite our roots in industrial service provision for high carbon-emitting industries, we finally started taking our seat at the climate action table in 2020. Over the last 20 years, we have continuously formed a competent engineering and project management team within our R&D, which can help many stakeholders transform from brown industries to climate-neutral industries. By 2020 we have supported a technologically clean transition with project implementations amounting to more than €400 million over the years.

We have also increased our emphasis on the waste recycling and environmental technology sectors as well as energy and supply. Three reasons drive us: we consider waste as a valuable material and we want to find solutions for the increasing global food needs, as well as create jobs and social value. With current success in the DACH region and numerous markets worldwide, we are looking forward to expanding in the upcoming years. For example, we are developing projects for the recycling of the organic waste with the government of the United Arab Emirates. With the increasing requirement for both waste and energy solutions and the willingness to change, we are also hoping to tackle markets such as India, Southeast Asia as well as Africa.

While the past year has been a challenge, we have seen in it an opportunity to innovate and accelerate the transformation to greener industries. None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of our employees and the loyalty and commitment of our customers and suppliers.

I would like to thank all our stakeholders for their support and patience in this past year of uncertainty.

Johann Christof