"We want to produce climate-neutral in 2030!" - H2O reduces CO2 emissions by 55 % in the pandemic year 2020

Being sustainable. What does that actually mean? Separating waste? Saving water? Cycling a lot instead of driving? Yes, of course that too. But much more.

For us as a company, sustainability means not only ecological aspects but also social and economic responsibility. In order to document our goals and progress in these areas, we have been publishing a comprehensive sustainability report (available here in German) every year since 2018. This helps us to get closer to our goals. Among them, that we want to produce completely CO2-neutral by 2030.

The year 2020 was a very special year with the Corona pandemic. Many sustainability goals, such as the reduction of CO2 through the elimination of air travel, have been more than exceeded. But many other goals that were not influenced by the pandemic were also achieved. Here you can read a summary of the most important results:

Economy

In spring 2020, the economy collapsed, orders were postponed and the willingness to invest decreased. However, through situational and selective short-time work and savings efforts, we were able to retain our permanent staff and secure the company's financial independence.

In addition, technologies introduced to the market in 2020, such as the ZLD post-concentrator, made wastewater-free production possible for even more customers. Thus, in 2020, our customers treated a total of approximately 3,056,400 m³ of water. Since the beginning of VACUDEST's history, about 22,550,000 m³ of industrial wastewater have been treated - that is roughly the size of the Titisee, a lake in the Black Forest.

Social

We consider our employees to be one of the most important resources of a company and we want to offer an attractive working environment. This includes participation in the success of the company and the opportunity for further development. Here we were not able to match the previous year's figures - many seminars were cancelled due to the pandemic. The goal for 2021 is to also include the much-used webinars in our training statistics. In general, staff turnover dropped sharply to 8.6% in 2020 compared to 14.3% in 2019.

We see the Corona pandemic as an opportunity to accelerate digitalisation, which we can use to make our workplaces more flexible. We have allowed employees to work from home offices since March 2020. In departments where this was not possible, we relied on time-shifted, flexible working. So far, there have been no cases of infection that can be traced back to an infection in our company.

Ecology

We help our customers to produce more sustainably with our machines. Internally, we also do a lot to protect our environment.

In 2020, we equipped our H2O fleet with two new e-cars.

In addition, our extension building at the headquarter in Steinen was completed in 2020 with the installation of a photovoltaic system. With it, we produced 258,000 kWh of electricity, 97,000 kWh of which went into the operation of our production hall, 7,000 kWh into the charging columns of our e-charging park and 154,000 kWh we were able to feed into the grid. Compared to the previous year 2019, our electricity consumption has increased slightly. This can be explained primarily by the increased volume of trial runs for larger installations and testing for new technologies. The goal for 2021 is to install an electricity storage system so that we can also use the electricity we have fed in so far ourselves.

On the issue of water extraction, recycling and consumption, we have been able to improve CO2 savings by a total of 14%. As these parameters were only slightly or not at all influenced by the pandemic, we expect positive developments here in the future as well. The goal for 2021 is to install aerators at the hand-washing sinks that save up to 50% water. We see great potential for savings here, especially due to the frequent hand washing during the pandemic.

Ultimate goal: climate-neutral by 2030

Our ultimate goal continues to be a climate-neutral production by 2030. To achieve this, we want to save 10% CO2 every year. This year, our CO2 savings are even around 55% due to our special circumstances. For 2021, we have set a target of minus 20%, which corresponds to emissions of < 308 t CO2. We are looking forward to tackling these targets in the current year and actively working towards our vision of a wastewater-free industry.