KATZ / Environmental awareness

A sustainability strategy that will pay dividends in the future

A study by the management consulting firm “accenture” confirms what most people already knew: 97 percent of CEOs believe that sustainability issues will play a decisive role in their company’s success in the future. Other companies talk about “going green” – but we went green a long time ago.

To be honest, we already feel a little bit like sustainability experts, simply because we have always applied this principle to our products and have always understood that we are responsible for our impact on the environment. To ensure we continue to improve our environmental performance in the future, we are certified to the environmental management standard DIN EN ISO 14001 as well as to DIN EN ISO 50001.

Closed Loop Recycling

Sustainability sometimes means making something into the same thing over and over again. We recycle 98.9 % of the waste we produce, feeding it back into the raw materials cycle. For example, we are constantly making the basic material we use for our products from that very same basic material – or, more accurately, from the residues of our production process. The fact is that the products we make can be reincorporated in our production cycle at any time.

Heat Recovery

Hot air is a renewable energy source that we are determined to use for more than just heating our production facilities. We recover the heat from our production process – and feed it right back in again! Just one more way in which we take some of the strain off the environment. In recent years this method has enabled us to achieve a 6 percent reduction in the amount of energy we use to produce heat. We have also cut the amount of electricity we use in our production facilities by 12,7 percent since 2010, boosting our eco-friendly credentials even further.

Closed Water Loop

Sometimes it can be a good idea to say ‘enough is enough, let’s reuse what we have’. KATZ uses a closed water loop. That means we only need 10 percent of the fresh water required by other companies in this sector – and we don’t let anything into the system that doesn’t belong there. We’re particular proud of the fact that we have managed to cut our water consumption and the amount of waste water we produce by 50 percent over the last five years. We’ll be continuing these efforts to save even more water in the future.

Managed Forestry

If you are surrounded by wood and your business depends on wood, it’s your job to ensure there is always plenty available. For us, reforestation is just as important as harvesting the trees we need. And we only thin out trees in the forest earlier than anticipated if that makes sense as part of a robust and sustainable forest management strategy.

Water Power

The difference between water and people is that water needs no encouragement to turn its energy into work. All that’s required are people who have the will to harness that energy. We are more than willing to do that – in fact in 2015 we invested 3.8 million euros in modernising our hydropower plants. 51,1 percent of the energy we used came from renewable sources. We have also been continuing our efforts to improve the ecology of the River Murg by making alterations designed to help fish navigate up and down the river.

Made in the Black Forest

Sometimes taking shortcuts is the best way to protect nature – both in terms of creating value and getting hold of raw materials. If the only things you need to make your products are wood and water, what could be a better location than the Black Forest?! And, best of all, you can be sure our trucks won’t be clogging up the motorway!