Clear Commitment to Climate Protection: Beiersdorf Publishes Sustainability Review 2017

• Switchover to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2020
• Reduction of global CO₂ emissions by another 70 percent by 2025
• Targets aligned with the UN Paris Climate Accord

By 2020 Beiersdorf plans to switch over the electricity supply at all its production and office sites worldwide to 100 percent renewable energy sources. In 2017 the necessary conditions were established for all production sites and all of them will be switched over already in 2018, with the exception of Mexico and Nigeria. Chile and Poland are set to join the production centers in Germany and Spain, which already draw all their energy requirements directly from renewables. The remaining production centers will purchase “International Renewable Energy Certificates” (I-RECs) for the electricity they purchase, as in these countries it is either not yet possible to supply renewable electricity directly, or the conditions for direct supply are not economically viable. The production center in Mexico plans to generate its own electricity with a Combined Heat Cooling and Power (CHCP) trigeneration system. Electricity from renewable sources is thus set to rise from 45 percent today to around 75 percent in 2018.

“The worldwide switchover to renewable energies is a key lever in achieving our 2025 climate target. We also plan to develop measurable targets for our CO₂ emissions from packaging, raw materials, business travel, product transport, and finished-goods suppliers. This way we intend to achieve a clear reduction in our indirect emissions too”, confirms Zhengrong Liu, Executive Board Member for Human Resources and Sustainability.

The global switchover to renewable energies is part of Beiersdorf’s new climate strategy. In 2016, together with experts from the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF Germany) the company developed a new Climate Target: To reduce energy-related greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2025 versus the 2014 base year. Beiersdorf is thus acting in alignment with the commitments of the UN Paris Climate Accord (COP21), which aims to limit the rise in the Earth’s temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius. In 2017 the company already successfully lowered its energy-related CO₂ emissions per product manufactured by 27 percent.

Since 2010 Beiersdorf has bundled its global sustainability engagement under the strategic umbrella “We care.” This includes numerous measures right along the value chain in the three strategic focus areas of Products, Planet and People – from sustainable raw materials procurement, through employee health and safety, to reducing our environmental footprint and supporting socially disadvantaged families around the world.

For the first time the Beiersdorf Group is publishing a joint Sustainability Review for both Business Segments – Consumer and tesa – for the 2017 fiscal year; the Non-financial Disclosure has been audited by EY.

The Sustainability Review is available for download from the Group’s website: https://www.beiersdorf.com/sustainability/reporting/downloads

• Clear Commitment to Climate Protection: Beiersdorf Publishes Sustainability Review 2017 PDF 483 KB 
• Sustainability Review 2017 PDF 24 MB 
• Sustainability Reporting of the Consumer Business Segment PDF 19 MB 
• Sustainability Reporting of the tesa Business Segment PDF 4 MB