Gerhard Schubert drives renewed sustainability venture

German packaging machinery specialist Gerhard Schubert has moved to further improve its overall company environmental performance with its Mission Blue Sustainability initiative, writes Neill Barston.

As the business explained, it is committed to tackling major ecological challenges in terms of climate change, and its latest venture is driven by a desire for further action on social responsibility issues.

To this end, four key areas were defined in which the family business is bundling all activities to contribute to a more liveable future: sustainable corporate governance, climate-neutral production, environmentally friendly machines and services, and sustainable packaging.

Confectionery Production has previously reported on key machinery developments within the company, with its latest initiative reflected in the performance of its equipment lines such as its Lightline packaging system, which has been instilled with especially strong efficiency of operation.

“As a family business that thinks in terms of generations, sustainability has always been very important to us and is firmly anchored in our company’s vision. This importance has grown significantly in recent years, which is why we will be doing even more to live up to this responsibility with our Mission Blue Sustainability Initiative,” explains Ralf Schubert, Managing Partner at Schubert (pictured left of image, with the company’s senior management).

“It isn’t only about further reducing the company’s ecological footprint. Schubert also wants to work with and for its customers to advance sustainable and future-proof packaging solutions. We are well aware that global challenges can only be overcome together.”

On the journey towards this sustainable future, Mission Blue’s focus is therefore on people. For example, in terms of sustainable corporate governance, the company has identified job security, reconciliation of family and career, as well as equality and transparency as key pivotal points for future measures.

Marcel Kiessling, Managing Director Sales and Service, added: “We know that only qualified and highly motivated employees make our success possible. So, we place their needs at the centre of our entrepreneurial activities. For us, this is sustainability at its most beautiful.”

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that this sense of appreciation also includes the entire Schubert team being informed about the new and very extensive Mission Blue Sustainability Initiative during the Employee Day at company headquarters in Crailsheim – which also marks the public launch.

As the company noted, two further  fields of action of Mission Blue are climate-neutral production, and environmentally friendly machinery and services, including one of core objectives being achieving climate neutral status.

By the end of 2023, the Schubert Group will be climate-neutral in compliance with Scope 1 and 2 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The switch to green electricity at the beginning of 2022 and the commissioning of a climate-neutral machine assembly hall and office building next year will play an important part in achieving this. This is followed by the goal of reducing Scope 3 emissions. Schubert relies on a strong network of mainly regional suppliers. New technologies such as the AI-supported optimisation of robot movements with Schubert Motion help continue improving the energy efficiency of Schubert packaging machines – further reducing the machines’ carbon footprint and that of customers at the same time.

Schubert will also be supporting its customers even more in the future in producing more sustainably themselves.

To this end, the packaging experts are dedicating the fourth key area of Mission Blue to comprehensive, environmentally friendly packaging development together with renowned industry partners.

An important foundation for this is the well-established, open-development and manufacturer-independent consulting provided through Schubert-Consulting and experts in cardboard and film packaging. Moreover, Schubert is further expanding its internal testing facilities with the Schubert Technikum as well as development partnerships with packaging manufacturers, research institutes and universities.

 

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