Carolyn Leung is Sustain­ability Manager and, together with trainee Lea Steilen, ensures that the Uhlmann Group does its utmost to protect our planet. Since October, the two have been devel­oping our Group-wide climate strategy together with repre­sen­ta­tives from the Group compa­nies. “Embedded in our 4ward25 strategy, we are thus laying the foun­da­tion for Group-wide collab­o­ra­tion to install an over­ar­ching climate strategy for the Uhlmann Group,” says Leung.

The fact that Uhlmann is taking this issue so seri­ously is not purely out of a sense of moral oblig­a­tion. Today, sustain­able prac­tices give compa­nies a compet­i­tive edge: “This issue is high on the agenda of all customers from the phar­ma­ceu­tical, food, and consumer goods indus­tries, and some­thing they actively seek,” explains Lea Steilen.

Customers seek this issue actively.

Lea Steilen, Trainee Sustain­ability Manage­ment

Collecting data

But how do you go about devel­oping a climate strategy? “The first step we took was to hold work­shops and discuss this issue with the managing direc­tors of the indi­vidual Group compa­nies,” says Leung. The next step involved appointing so-called “Carbon Managers” for each Group Company. Their job is to collect and eval­uate rele­vant data from the indi­vidual compa­nies, like on CO2 emis­sions. Because we can only take appro­priate action if we can iden­tify where and just how much CO2 is being emitted by each company.
Based on the emis­sions, ambi­tion levels are then set for the indi­vidual sites and the company as a whole. This is done in tandem with the company manage­ment. Project Manager Leung and Lea Steilen them­selves each have a dual func­tion: “Firstly, we ourselves are the Sustain­ability and Carbon Managers for Uhlmann Pac-Systeme. And secondly, we also manage the climate strategy project for the entire Group,” says Steilen.

Ambi­tious goals for climate protec­tion

The strategy should be in place by the end of the busi­ness year, i.e., on March 31. However, it is not intended to be a rigid frame­work, as Steilen says: “We are aware that external circum­stances can vary greatly from one Group Company to the next. That’s why we want to allow as much flex­i­bility as possible in imple­menting the indi­vidual climate protec­tion measures.” While other compa­nies rely, say, on offset­ting their CO2 emis­sions by purchasing “pollu­tion licenses”, the Uhlmann Group is clearly committed to avoiding the green­house gas wher­ever possible. “We want to do it right first time,” says Steilen.

To achieve this, the team is looking at three areas, known as scopes: Scope 1 covers emis­sions that occur directly within the company – for example, those from our vehicle fleet. Scope 2 relates to indi­rect emis­sions, such as those caused by the gener­a­tion of purchased energy. Finally, Scope 3 deals with emis­sions that occur in upstream or down­stream processes, for example in the purchase of mate­rials, in logis­tics and in the oper­a­tion of machinery. “The biggest chal­lenge is to collect the Scope 3 emis­sions,” says Leung. “So at present we are analyzing the value chain and deter­mining where and exactly what emis­sions are gener­ated. We will then use these to develop an appro­priate emis­sions reduc­tion plan.”

Raising employee aware­ness

And what can the indi­vidual enti­ties do to support this? “A large part of our work is about raising aware­ness among employees, because every depart­ment must play an active role in the trans­for­ma­tion.
To reduce upstream and down­stream emis­sions, for example, it is essen­tial to work closely with suppliers and system­at­i­cally analyze supply chains,” explains Leung. “As a company, we are also respon­sible for the emis­sions that are gener­ated by the supplier – from the extrac­tion and processing of raw mate­rials right down to the trans­porta­tion and delivery of goods to our sites. Inci­den­tally, the way we design our own prod­ucts can have a sustain­able impact on lowering emis­sions in the supply chain, in manu­fac­turing and during oper­a­tion.”