We are aware of the major challenges involved in slowing the pace of climate change.

We also embrace our responsibility and want to play our part in achieving the goal of keeping the increase in global temperatures significantly below 2 degrees. On the one hand, we have set ourselves ambitious goals to reduce our carbon footprint but also want our products themselves as well as responsible action to make an active contribution to achieving this goal.

We have had our environmental management certified in accordance with DIN EN ISO 14001.

Rainer von Hesse, Group Finance, is committed to environmental issues at LPKF and works with various teams to drive forward measures to reduce our carbon footprint and conserve resources.

We save resources!

We strive for continuous optimization of energy and resource consumption and have set ourselves specific targets to this end. The consumption of energy and resources is regularly recorded, monitored and evaluated. We strive to achieve ever greater efficiency for our systems while maintaining a constant energy requirement. In this way, we aim to achieve positive effects for the environment combined with a competitive advantage.

Hazardous substances

We make every effort to minimize the proportion of hazardous substances used in the development of our technologies. An annual substitution survey is conducted for all hazardous substances. to determine whether liquids, gases and solids that are harmful to the environment can be replaced by less harmful alternatives. To ensure the best possible protection for our customers and the environment as well, those substances and products with a high risk potential (SVHC) that are used in our systems are consistently identified.

Recycling

We are already recycling 68% of our waste. We are continuously working to improve our recycling rate. We also attach great importance on ensuring the environmentally compatible disposal of any waste that is not recycled. For this reason, we have entrusted the disposal of such waste to partners that have professional sustainability management systems in place.

With our service packages and upgrades, we keep our systems up to date and extend their service life. We have also introduced an “Equal to New Concept”. This involves replacing all wear parts, repairing defective components and reselling them at a discounted price. This will keep the waste generated by our products at a low level.

We use recyclable wood that meets the IPPC standard as packaging for our systems.

On the way to climate neutrality

We are part of the global strategy to achieve CO2 neutrality by 2045. To make an important contribution to this goal, we plan to make our production carbon neutral by 2030. We want to gradually reduce our carbon footprint. To achieve this, we have set ourselves concrete targets.

Energy

Electricity and gas are the primary energy sources used at our locations. At locations where this can be implemented on a contractual basis, we are already purchasing electricity from renewable sources, which now covers more than 90% of our electricity consumption. We also want to make a contribution in this area and therefore generate part of the electricity we need through our own photovoltaic systems.

We rely mainly on gas to generate heat. Here too, we have concluded contracts to purchase climate neutral gas for our German production locations. This guarantees that the amount of natural gas consumed is balanced by the production of biogas. As part of our renovation plans, we will also be changing over to electricity to generate heat in the long term. Our renovation plans also include making improvements to our building insulation and using technologies to save electricity in the area of lighting and air condition/ventilation.

Since LPKF will also be impacted by the phase-out of the internal combustion engine, we are working to convert our company fleet to electric vehicles. With this in mind, we will install charging stations at all European locations to enable efficient charging of company vehicles.

To help reduce CO₂ emissions, we have set ourselves specific targets.

Freight and travel

Given our position as a global company, emissions from freight represent the greatest share. In this case, we have assumed the share attributable to the party that pays for the freight costs as specified by Incoterms.

Another important source of emissions is business trips to customers as well as business travel between locations. The majority of trips are undertaken by our service department for the purpose of operating our machines. We have already reduced the amount of travel within the Group substantially through the use of video conferences. However, we are also successfully testing new possibilities in the service area, which would enable technicians who are already active on site to carry out service work with video assistance. Although meetings with customers are increasingly taking place via video conferences, on-site demonstrations remain the most effective method of presenting the functionality of our machines.