Klingele wins World Corrugated Award as the most environmentally friendly company
The Klingele Group, one of the leading independent manufacturers of corrugated base paper and corrugated board packaging, received the World Corrugated Award 2019 in the "Environment-friendly and Intensive Production Contribution" category on 7 April in Shanghai. With its convincing environmentally friendly and resource-saving strategy, Klingele prevailed in the final against five competitors in its category. The 14-member jury based its decision on Klingele's consistent implementation of measures for the energy-efficient and sustainable manufacture of ecological products, including the use of renewable energies and innovative technologies in production. Mirko Klepsch, a member of Klingele's Central Technology department, accepted the award from Peter van Ostaijen, Managing Director of the Corrugated Benelux Association (CBA), in front of around 300 guests.
This year, for the first time, the prize was awarded jointly by international packaging associations and trade fair organiser Reed Exhibitions in eight categories. The competition started in November 2018; from 20 January, an international audience was able to vote online via an internet platform in the first round. In total, over 1.1 million votes were cast; this high level of participation shows a keen interest in the World Corrugated Awards.
Klingele impressed the jury with its business model, which is based not only on environmentally friendly products, but also on a manufacturing process that focuses on resource and energy efficiency: Corrugated packaging is made from renewable raw materials, is 100% recyclable and fully biodegradable; this makes it an attractive choice for all companies that want to minimise their own ecological footprint. Product technology innovations and the creativity of the development teams at Klingele have also long since made corrugated board packaging accessible for complex applications, for example for plants or food.
The decisive factor in awarding the prize to Klingele was the packaging manufacturer's comprehensive strategy for reducing the environmental impact caused by the use of energy in production.
Reducing energy consumption
The first pillar of Klingele's energy management is based on the consistent saving of energy through a variety of measures, such as the use of modern machines, components and technologies or improved processes and behaviour. As a result, Klingele has reduced its specific consumption of electricity and steam per tonne of paper in paper production by 30% and 29% respectively since 2000. The measures have also had an impact in corrugated cardboard production, where the specific consumption of thermal energy has fallen by 31% since 2000.
Renewable energies
As a second pillar, Klingele is consistently focussing on the sustainable generation of energy. The long-term goal is to cover the entire energy consumption from renewable sources and the utilisation of waste. By using wind power and photovoltaics as well as power plants based on biogas, biomass, substitute fuels and residual materials, around 85% of the heat requirement and 55% of the electricity requirement will already be provided from renewable sources, including the utilisation of residual materials, once the current investments have been completed in 2020
Offsetting the remaining emissions
For environmentally conscious customers, Klingele offers completely CO2-neutral packaging as a further step in cooperation with the consultancy firm ClimatePartner: With this model, customers support certified climate projects to offset the remaining (still) unavoidable CO2 emissions generated by their order. Klingele and its customers are currently supporting projects for wind energy in Morocco, forest conservation in Germany and water treatment in Cambodia.
"Wellpappe is a wonderful, environmentally friendly and sustainable product. For us, it goes without saying that we also take this into account during production and manufacture our packaging in harmony with the environment," comments Dr Jan Klingele, Managing Director of Klingele Papierwerke. "The fact that we have now been recognised as the most environmentally friendly company in the world in our industry at the World Corrugated Awards is a great endorsement and one that I am very proud of."
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