As one of the industry’s first companies, aqua-concept and its subsidiary, Schicht GmbH, are now CO2-neutral. We have compiled a comprehensive greenhouse gas summary and created two compensation projects to underline our consistently eco-friendly focus.
Even if the implementation of the Paris climate agreement is slightly off the political focus at the moment, we all bear responsibility for climate change and global warming. As a company, we are also compelled to act more sustainably. That is why we are committed to making the world of water treatment not only more effective but also healthier and more environmentally friendly. For quite a while now, our focus has been on developing and marketing products with the best possible level of environmental safety. Manufactured from renewable raw materials using innovative and CO2-minimised eco-production processes, our GreenProducts help you reach your sustainability targets without forgoing quality and performance.
Carbon footprint for the entire group of companies
But we want more. Our aim is to continuously drive the entire company’s ecological direction and further prime it using systematic climate protection activities. Compiling an extensive greenhouse gas summary for the entire group of companies serves as the foundation. From now on, unavoidable emissions are compensated by select climate protection projects.
CO2 summary compliant with GHG protocol
Against this backdrop, the first comprehensive greenhouse gas summary was compiled for the 2016 business year for the two companies, aqua-concept and Schicht GmbH, according to the requirements of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG protocol). The GHG protocol is a globally leading standard for organisational carbon footprint calculations. Compiling a carbon footprint not only includes the actual business operation as such but also up- and partially downstream processes, to gain a realistic impression of the emission summary.
Inclusion of up- and downstream processes
The entire direct and indirect emissions at the Gräfelfing location (scope 1 and scope 2 emissions) were collected based on primary data. In addition, we decided to consider not only scope 1 and scope 2 emissions but also scope 3 emissions from business trips, tradeshows, procurement of printer paper and toner, provisioning of water and waste water treatment, waste disposal and energy-induced upstream-chain emissions. This is no compulsory part of the summary; we perform this on a voluntary basis. Initially, emissions from procuring input materials (incl. transport) and packaging materials are not part of the CO2 summary but collected during a separate specific Product Carbon Footprint (PCF).
We have compensated our carbon footprint
Following the compilation of the carbon footprint, avoiding and/or reducing greenhouse gases has top priority. Releasing CO2 is never completely avoidable. We have climate-neutralised, i.e., compensated, these emissions by buying emission reduction certificates from two climate protection projects. Due to the global effect of greenhouse gases, it does not matter to the climate where emissions are reduced.
Our compensation project in Rwanda
The project district of Gatsibo is a mostly rural part of Rwanda. The local community still uses a traditional 3-stone fire for boiling their drinking and process water. The result: Their forest land becomes successively smaller and burning firewood releases large amounts of greenhouse gases. Installing modern technology eliminated the need for boiling the drinking water. The local community now gets their clean drinking water from a well. They use 70 % less firewood and their CO2 emissions are significantly lower. Thanks to the project, they save 120,000t of CO2e per year.
Our compensation project in India
The “Bachat Lamp Yoyana”project was developed by the Indian office for energy efficiency to promote energy-efficient lighting. Lightbulbs with little energy-efficiency are replaced by high-quality and long-lasting compact fluorescent lamps. If the lamps no longer work, they are collected and disposed of in an environmentally compliant manner. CO2 emissions are significantly reduced. It raises the local community’s awareness for climate protection targets and decreases the spending of private and public budgets. In total, the project saves 275,000t of CO2e.
