Voith facility in Garching honored for Excellence in Sustainability

GARCHING, GERMANY. For the fourth time, the Voith facility in Garching near Munich has received the "Factory of the Year" award. This year, the site was honored for its outstanding "Excellence in Sustainability." According to Steffen Krippendorf, Senior Vice President Operations at Voith Turbo Mobility, the jury's decision shows that Voith is following the right path with its holistic approach to sustainability: "At Voith, we understand that to achieve our sustainability goals, it is critical to balance all three core elements: economic, social and environmental sustainability. In addition to reducing our carbon footprint and maintaining honest as well as transparent accounting and regulatory compliance, we strive to support our employees, customers and society - locally and globally," says Krippendorf.

Due to this holistic view, it was possible, to achieve the CO2 neutrality planned for 2022 ahead of schedule, for example. Since 2015, the CO2 emissions have been cut by 61 percent. The plant reduced its annual energy use equivalent to annual energy consumed by 300 single-family houses. At the same time, the team in Garching developed remanufacturing concepts for various products. Through this remanufacturing, up to 20 tons of material are now recycled every year.

The competition jury, made up of renowned experts from industry and science, also gave a positive assessment to the company's pioneering commitment to economic sustainability, which is reflected, among other things, in the expansion of its service activities. The team in Garching is aiming to increase the proportion of service activities from the current level of over 10 percent to up to 20 percent, while maintaining a comparable level of value creation. Training in Garching is also part of the holistic approach to sustainability. For example, in their second year of training, apprentices learn to calculate and manufacture hydraulic or electric learning tables and sell them to other training workshops.

Customers benefit from the sustainability concept in Garching as well since employees always consider the further development of products in this context. Intelligent research and development on automatic transmissions, which are currently installed in conventional bus powertrains, for example, could lead to efficiency improvements that would reduce fuel consumption.