MORE SUSTAINABILITY WITH HVL –
By marketing waste from the chemical industry as by-products – our founding idea – we have been contributing to the conservation of natural resources and a sustainable economy since 1994. Unintentional output from the chemical industry, initially classified as waste, is evaluated by us in a first step regarding its chemical and physical properties. Afterwards, it is specified and classified as a by-product or, alternatively, made reusable as a secondary product through a treatment step such as distillation. We therefore enable the marketing of former waste as by-products or secondary products. This substitutes primary raw materials and thus protects them for future generations.
Today, we define sustainability further, greater. What is a future without a future?
Our responsibility
The Paris Climate Agreement aims to ensure that global warming is limited to well below two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times. The states even want to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. How can this be achieved?
Did you know that agriculture and forestry can make an important contribution to this? Carbon is sequestered through humus build-up in agriculture. Forest conversion and reforestation maintain and improve the air pollution control function of the forest. Trees continuously suck CO2 from the air and store it in their biomass.
CO2 balancing
At every beginning there is the awareness that we are responsible for the creation of CO2. But who of us knows for how much? For this reason, we looked for an experienced partner to support and accompany us in this process, the company Arqum. Arqum continuously calculates and certifies the “how much” for us on the basis of international calculation standards. You can find our greenhouse gas balances for the last years under downloads.
As part of international supply chains, we have to identify and assess emitters according to the Kyoto Protocol, divided into three scopes, with Scope 3 being subdivded into upstream and downstream acitivities.
Sustainable through humus build-up
With CarboCert we have found a partner who accompanies us in the implementation of our goals and supports our sustainability management. To this end, we have taken on a sponsorship for a farmer from our region in the Markgräflerland, between Freiburg and Basel, who participates for us in the humus-building programme of the company CarboCert and offsets our CO2 balance by 100%. In addition to binding CO2, the humus growth also ensures that drinking water quality is improved, chemical fertilisers and pesticides are reduced, species are protected and our food is produced in a more balanced and healthy way.
Charging infrastructure for e-mobility
In addition to humus formation, we also invest continuously in reducing our CO2 emissions. Looking to the future, in 2022 we have equipped our HQ in Badenweiler with a generous charging infrastructure. We not only want to make it easier for our employees to switch to e-mobility, but also enable our visitors to charge their electric or hybrid vehicles free of charge with 100% green electricity. We are convinced that the electrification of mobility cannot succeed without a reliable charging infrastructure.
Welcome to the future!
After assessment and quantification, the question of avoidance, reduction and ultimately compensation through qualified and for us verifiable measures that meet our own high standards and with which we can identify.
Today, HVL offsets 100% of all CO2 emissions caused by us as a company in Scope 1 and 2 and partly in upstream Scope 3 from 2022 onwards with the help of CarboCert and in the long term with our sponsorship through humus growth. As part of our EcoVadis certification, we will discuss with our suppliers how we can reduce the PCF (Product Carbon Footprint) of our sourced products.
