Clean and Green Operations

Climate change has been a growing global concern for decades, marked by the highest carbon dioxide levels in hundreds of thousands of years, and is growing in significance due to its already evident consequences on the human population. An increasing number of action plans and goals set by governments and institutions provide incentive for companies to set sustainability targets. With our commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we aim to fight climate change and protect life on land and below water. Our business model and technologies help address this issue.

As a service company, the focus of the direct and indirect environmental aspects is on saving environmental impacts in our offices and workshops.

Based on our sustainability analysis, we have identified the sustainability objectives that are to be implemented across the group of companies in the upcoming years.

Objective 1: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Objective 2: Improve energy efficiency and the use of renewables
Objective 3: Improve the waste management system, including the tracking of waste data and disposal methods

We also continuously identify, analyse, and measure the environmental impact of our business.

Relevant SDGs

Footprint

For the Year 2019 we have mapped out first time our carbon footprint to see where we are currently causing greenhouse gas emissions.

Our emissions data is separated into Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3, based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Scope 1 includes direct emissions from vehicles in our fleet. Scope 2 includes indirect emissions from purchased electricity and heat and Scope 3 contains other indirect emissions, including business travel and upstream and downstream processes.

All aspects of GHG emissions in Christof Industries production will be analysed. We have already identified numerous different measures and actions to decrease GHG emissions in our company. For example, we want to increase the use of renewable electricity. In Austria, we have changed the lighting to LED and over the next years we aim to gradually change the current fleet to electro mobility. We plan to further commit to reducing energy consumption and contribute to energy efficiency by training our employees, arranging the work plan to reduce idle time of equipment and gradually replacing and selecting low energy consumption equipment. Our HSE departments regularly send out information to all employees regarding environmentally conscious behaviour including energy saving measures.

Relevant SDGs

Energy

Industries are energy-intensive and thus contribute negatively to the environment. Our aim is to make industries more efficient, by increasing the use of renewable energies and climate-friendly technologies. As a company we want to not only increase our own energy efficiency, but also support other companies that work in very polluting industries make their processes less energy-intensive.

Energy Management

Our energy management measures throughout the company include

Training,
Energy resource consumption indicators,
Equipment selection and process selection, and
Supervision and analysis control.

Relevant SDGs

Travel

Mobility is extremely important for economic and social development and is significant especially for Christof Industries as a global company. However, transportation is a large contributor to GHG emissions and thus, must be minimized.

Our fleet currently consists of petrol, diesel and electric cars. With the increased inclusion of electric cars in the company fleet, we aim to minimize emissions. For example, at our location in Graz, we aim to ensure that journeys in the city area are only carried out with electric vehicles or public transportation where possible. This contributes to the reduction of fine dust pollution in the city of Graz, which according to the Air Pollution Control Act (IG-L) should not exceed the limit of 50 μg/m3.

As a global company with subsidiaries and projects all around the world, business travel has been required in certain situations. In order to reduce our carbon footprint, we encourage taking the train over flying where possible.

Relevant SDGs

Waste Management

Waste has become a massive issue for our environment. Therefore, it is our responsibility to manage it properly. Waste is managed in our company by the environmental management system. In addition, we are constantly looking for ways to increase the material efficiency of our operations.

We strive to eliminate waste, by providing waste management solutions and encourage reuse and recycling of resources and materials. We provide new and innovative systems for managing various types of waste and strive for a zero waste circular economy.

Christof Industries has a number of guidelines to waste reduction set by our HSE departments. There are nominated waste officers for the several branches to evaluate the actual data and to set corrective measures for the future. Information is communicated regularly to all employees regarding environmentally conscious behaviour including reducing waste.

We educate our employees on waste and ensure that kitchen and plastic waste can be reduced by making people aware of the possibility to use reusable boxes for food and refilling bottles of water.

In addition to this, our services and technologies focus on waste management (see Section on Our Sustainable innovations).

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