CSRD, ESRS, Taxonomy – prepare for new reporting obligations

The EU "Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive"
("CSRD"; EU 2022/2464) was adopted in December 2022 and needs to be transposed into national law by mid-2024. What is the context for this regulation? Is this additional bureaucracy or a chance for better stakeholder communication? Who is directly and indirectly concerned? How to best prepare for it?

Please read more here or contact us with your requirements.

How does your company contribute to the SDGs?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations, covering a broad range of social, ecological and economic development issues and apply to all countries. They are also known as the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development". (1)

The progress in achieving these goals depends on the contribution of the economic sector and individual enterprises. This holds particularly true for the goals Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and Responsible Consumption and Production, but also for further goals like Decent Work and Economic Growth or Affordable and Clean Energy, as well as cross sector goal like Quality Education or Climate Action.

What does this mean for your company? Which (sub)goals are particularly relevant for you? How do you measure your contribution to the implementation and how do you communicate this to your stakeholders?
If you require support regarding these topics, please contact us with your problem setting.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals

Corporate Carbon Footprint – Transparency and triple benefit

Why should companies bother about their carbon footprint?

Aside from intrinsic motivation possibly also because an important customer asks for it (in order to complete his own balance with data from his supply chain).
Whatever your motivation is – in most cases you can achieve a triple benefit:

• Transparency about your own emissions highlights the sources with the biggest reduction potential
• Reductions of carbon dioxide emissions are in most cases possible through reductions on the resource input side, in particluar heating and air conditioning (respectively process heating and cooling)
• Costs are reduced or the effect of rising energy cost can be mitigated

How to establish a carbon footprint for companies, organisations or products and how to analyse the results? Contact us for an individual proposal.
Of course, we have also calculated our own carbon footprint. The result of 0.514t CO2eq for 2023 is slightly below the emissions of the previous year (0.532t). In the category of material, in the previous year a UPS was acquired, las year a new smartphone. Like its predecessor, it is modular and can be repaired. The old device was returned to the manufacturer, where it is refurbished and can be sold to another user. The remaining emissions were fairly stable. The total figure is again well below the per capita emissions of comparable companies.
Details can be found here

An increasing number of consumers are concerned about the effects of their consumption patterns on environment and society. The B2B sector is interested in sustainable products as well. But:

How to design a sustainable product?

Should ecological materials be used?
Is attention to the social factors in the supply chain required?
Are a long product life, easy serviceability and recycling at the end of the lifetime the key to success?

All that can help – but usage patterns play an important role as well. How can the consumer know which influence his way of usage has on the overall eco-balance? How does he respond to lease or sharing concepts instead of buying and owning products?

For a holistic picture a look at the total product life cycle is essential, because the biggest impacts are not always where they are assumed to be. And all of this often has effects on the business model – how can one realise sustainable profits in future?

If you need assistance with all these questions, please contact us with your problem setting.

Electronic or paper based documents – what is more sustainable?
This question can't be answered generally, but through a comparative life cycle analysis. This has been performed by Dr. Ralf Resch in his MBA master thesis. The results showed a
clear advantage for e-books vs. paper based books.
The advantage becomes smaller when reading e­books with conventional displays, because they consume more electricity than e­book readers. In order to help the ecologically better scenario succeed, however, more factors of the socio-economic domain need to be aligned: in this case, in particular price setting for and availability of e­books and user habits. Sustainabiltiy hence becomes an interdisciplinary challenge.