For more and more people, the environmentally friendly behavior of companies is becoming an important criterion. As a group of companies, we very much welcome the growing awareness of climate protection and are following this development!
In addition to economic targets for 2021, the entire AEB Group has set itself the goal of being climate neutral this year. We want to make our contribution to the 1.5 degree target of the Paris Climate Agreement. The right mindset was in place to view this topic as an equal goal, and the motivation within the company was clearly noticeable.
The first step in achieving this measurably was to calculate CO2 emissions. Emissions of the other six greenhouse gases listed in the Kyoto Protocol were also converted into CO2 equivalents. The calculation was based on the year 2019 in order to exclude corona-related side effects in the calculation.
Climate neutrality at BEX
In this calculation, the two main factors of BEX Components AG were determined.
- On the one hand, this is the electricity consumption for our premises and the data center,
- and secondly, it is the travel distances of our employees, mostly by car.
Now the question arose “What can we do to improve in these two areas in particular”?
In the area of electricity, the first obvious thought was to switch to green electricity from our electricity provider and we are still in discussions about this. Furthermore, we are looking for discussions with our landlord to what extent renewable energies can be used within our building.
In the area of travel, it is more difficult to find measures that are also considered attractive for employees. There is little support for a subsidy for public transportation, as this increases travel time many times over. Another possibility in this area is to promote electromobility, for example through free charging options. What we have been able to implement and which has been well received by some employees is the offer of bicycle leasing via JobRad. In this way, we were able to motivate some employees to ride their bikes or e-bikes.
Overall, we are still in the process of finding and taking the right measures in both areas to make our contribution to the Paris climate protection agreement.
Even without having implemented all of the above measures, the Group has already achieved climate neutrality by offsetting 18,058 tons of CO2 through its support of a project in western Uganda. This involves planting trees on an area of 10,000 hectares in accordance with the FCS standard for sustainable forestry. This will create around 600 jobs, with employees benefiting from additional advantages:
- Medical care
- Education
- Clean water and sanitation
- Shelter
If you too would like to contribute to the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement and protect our environment for our descendants, then take action today.
