Papermaking for Life

We have been operating carbon neutrally at all locations worldwide since January 2022. A company is considered climate neutral if its processes, products and services do not further increase CO₂ in the atmosphere. However, CO₂ emissions cannot be completely avoided - companies can purchase offsetting measures for these emissions. The neutral position includes all emissions that occur directly within the company, for example through the use of natural gas or heating oil for heating purposes, as well as indirect emissions that occur through the external purchase of electricity, steam, heating or cooling (= Scope 1 and 2 according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, GHG).

We have been actively working on sustainability issues and optimizing our own activities for over 10 years. With regard to the climate neutrality currently achieved, we have clustered our measures into 4 general fields of action:

• Energy efficiency: Since fiscal 2011/12, we have been able to reduce our own energy consumption by almost a third. This is equivalent to the annual demand of a medium-sized city with 32,500 households. These savings are to be further expanded. Examples at Voith sites include the use of LED lighting, measures to refurbish buildings for energy efficiency, and the recovery of process heat.
• Own generation from renewable sources: Currently, our sites in Germany, Austria, India, and Sweden generate part of their required energy from renewable sources such as solar and hydropower.
• Energy procurement from renewable sources: At the beginning of fiscal 2021/22, we succeeded in almost doubling the share of renewable energy in Voith's wide electricity mix, from 44 percent in the previous year to 87 percent.
• Offsetting: CO₂ emissions that are currently unavoidable are offset voluntarily by means of compensation measures. This involves the purchase of certificates that follow the highest international standards (Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard).

These are CO₂ emissions that cannot currently be avoided. These are caused by processes that cannot be converted in the short term for technical and economic reasons as things stand today, for example process heat.

As already explained in the third question, four fields of action have been defined for the implementation of climate neutrality:

• Optimizing energy efficiency
• Increasing the share of energy supply from renewable sources
• Further increase in generation of own renewable energy 
• Further reduction of compensation measures through the actual reduction of emissions

In our fourth area of action in particular, we see potential for optimization in the future and would like to reduce our remaining, currently unavoidable CO₂ emissions and thus the compensation measures step by step to a minimum. The aim is to achieve a CO₂ reduction at all sites worldwide in relation to Scope 1 and Scope 2, namely:

• by more than one third by the end of 2024/25, 
• by 90 percent by the end of 2049/50.  

To achieve this target, we are working on suitable technical and economic solutions. For example, various production processes are being switched from fossil fuels to green electricity. On the way to achieving Voith's climate targets, compensation measures serve as a bridging solution.