With its ambitious climate protection strategy, the KHS Group is steadily driving the reduction in its carbon emissions.
One key milestone is its recent validation by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). On this basis, the company is now implementing specific measures to cut emissions.
Following confirmation by the SBTi of the climate goals it shares with parent company Salzgitter, the Dortmund systems supplier has set itself a number of ambitious targets.
For example, it has now pledged to reduce its direct and indirect Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 36 per cent by 2028. Moreover, the emissions generated throughout its entire value chain (Scope 3) are to drop by 20 per cent.
“Our responsibility goes beyond our own production plants. We supply our customers with holistic solutions that measurably improve their climate footprint,” says Kai Acker, CEO of KHS.
KHS has already fully converted to green electricity at all of its German production sites and is continuously optimising its infrastructure.
Measures such as efficient heating and lighting systems, use of waste heat, heat-efficient factory doors and intelligent building automation have in part already been implemented.
At the company headquarters in Dortmund, Germany, for instance, modern, sensor-controlled LED technology is cutting electricity consumption. Parallel to this, the vehicle fleet is being switched over to electric models.
KHS is also replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy – for the plants in Dortmund and Worms, the engineering company is even planning to introduce its own heating networks in order to do away completely with gas and oil.
In addition, photovoltaic systems at various German facilities are helping to reduce the amount of energy and CO2 consumed. Further PV setups are also in the pipeline at KHS’ international locations.
Besides cutting its own carbon emissions, KHS is also helping its customers to cut theirs. One good example of this is the new generation of InnoPET Blomax stretch blow molders.
With its optimised Double Gate heating system, it lowers energy consumption by up to 40 per cent compared to single-lane stretch blow moulders of the same capacity.
The Innopas SX pasteuriser considerably reduces water consumption by making use of optimised heat recovery systems. Furthermore, KHS’ Bottles & Shapes service enables extremely light PET bottles to be designed that use less material, which means customers save on precious resources.
Above and beyond its short-term targets, together with Salzgitter, KHS pledges to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest, with this date even brought forward to 2045, with regards to its Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
“The next few years are key to us firmly staying the course we’ve embarked on and becoming climate-neutral in production in the long-term. I’m absolutely convinced that we’ll meet our ambitious climate goals,” Acker concluded.
