What does sustainability actually mean?

Don't get me wrong: I am in favor of electromobility when a car is broken and needs replacement. But does it have to weigh 2.5 tons and accelerate to 100 km/h in 4 seconds? Does it have to be purchased as a status symbol? Isn't that the wrong approach?

Well.

We are already particularly sustainable, you and I, when it comes to the first point: using old and lightweight cars for as long as possible. And if we fuel them with carbon-neutral energy, voila, we all become a lot more sustainable.

In our company, we have implemented many things over the years, although we never talked about them much (because they were considered self-evident). We have replaced almost all plastic bags with paper bags, and we've been doing that for years. We source our packaging materials from a factory just 50 km away. Since 2010, we have replaced most adhesive tapes with water-activated paper tapes. Also, since 2010, we have been operating a combined heat and power plant, which will be replaced by heat pumps by the end of 2023. We replaced the 521 fluorescent tubes with LED lamps years ago – without much fanfare.

Oh, and of course, we have also installed a 99.75 kW photovoltaic system! Actually, 99.75 kW is much more than we need for our operations. But in the summer, we feed the excess electricity into the grid, and in the winter, the system still produces enough power to meet all our consumption needs. So, by the end of 2023, we will be able to generate our electricity, heat, and even cooling completely carbon-neutral.

I just wanted to mention that briefly. It's not enough to boast about what we are doing or intend to do. It benefits us all when we take action instead of talking about it so much.