22-12-2021
Once again, we are taking on a pioneering role in terms of sustainability and are turning our HAKRO collection climate neutral from 1 January 2022. We have been proactively promoting sustainability and environmental protection for many years. To this end, we avoid and reduce our CO2 emissions worldwide and compensate where it is currently not yet possible to avoid them. This makes us the first corporate wear supplier to be completely climate neutral - from raw materials to delivery to our authorised retail partners.
"Climate change is one of the greatest threats of our time and the textile industry is a major contributor to this development," says Managing Director Carmen Kroll. "Our goal must be to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. At HAKRO, we want to prove that this is possible and are looking for solutions that really make a difference. Making our entire collection climate neutral is the next logical step in our holistic climate protection strategy and I am proud that we have decided to do so."
As part of our climate protection strategy, we follow the triad of calculate, reduce and offset. For the climate neutrality of our collection, we first recorded the CO2 footprint of our products in the entire supply chain. In doing so, we followed the "cradle-to-customer plus waste" approach, which means that all released emissions from raw materials, transport, manufacturing, packaging, recycling and recovery at the end of a product's life cycle were taken into account. We were supported in this by ClimatePartner, the leading solution provider in climate protection for companies, with whom we have been working since 2017.
ClimatePartner carried out exact calculations of our CO2 emissions for us in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the leading standard for preparing greenhouse gas balances. In the next step, we offset the remaining unavoidable emissions by investing in forest conservation in Brazil - a climate protection project certified according to the Verified Carbon Standard + Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standard (VCS + CCBS Gold Level) and designed to last at least 40 years.
In addition, the CO2 calculation gives us the opportunity to identify further reduction potentials along our value chain and thus to reduce the emissions of our collection step by step. Avoidance and reduction approaches that have already been implemented include the gradual switch to sustainable or recycled fibres, the elimination or reduction of packaging material, the increased use of renewable energies in the supply chain and, in a pilot project, even the use of sustainable biofuels for the transport of goods by sea.
In the future, our goal is to expand the reduction processes of our CO2 emissions and thus to compensate less and less. To this end, we will localise even more emission hot spots by collecting primary data even more precisely and reduce them through direct interventions.
Our site in Schrozberg has been able to call itself climate-neutral since 2017, thanks to its self-sufficiency in green electricity, an extensive energy management system with battery storage, a combined heat and power plant operated with biogas admixture, and a gradual conversion to a combustion-free vehicle fleet.
"With our commitment to climate protection, we would also like to motivate you, dear dealers, to support our chosen path and to also pay attention to your CO2 footprint," says Carmen Kroll. "In this way, we can all make a joint contribution to achieving the 1.5 degree target. Join us on the path to a more sustainable future - For you, your customers and our environment."" Because that's how we can make our contribution to the 1.5 degree target together."
