LEONHARD KURZ presents its Sustainability Report 2023
Fürth/Germany, July 1, 2024: With its Sustainability Report 2023, LEONHARD KURZ once again shows how important responsible corporate governance is to the Group. In the more than 100-page report, the world's leading specialist in thin-film and finishing technology outlines its key areas of focus in domains such as the value chain, environmental protection, and labor and human rights.
Sustainability plays a key role for KURZ. The company has been a member of the UN Global Compact Network since 2021, an initiative by the United Nations that aims to promote an inclusive and sustainable economy across industries and borders. KURZ is also involved in numerous other sustainability initiatives.
KURZ’s ambition: ‘Be a green leader’
In its Sustainability Report 2023, the Group describes and documents its comprehensive commitment to sustainability. All the company’s activities that contribute to its sustainability strategy are grouped under the tagline ‘Be a green leader.’ This message highlights, on one hand, the importance of responsible business practices for people and the environment, and on the other hand, it extends an offer to all of the company's customers. CEO Dr. Andreas Hirschfelder emphasizes that the company remains firmly focused on the goals it has set itself and will continue to pursue them consistently. “We’re serious about becoming the most sustainable company in our industry. Product innovations and our constant development toward a circular economy not only benefit us but also sustainably lead our customers to success.”
The thin-film specialist is already on the right track. Its Sustainability Report 2023, for example, outlines key requirements and environmental directives, including those related to raw material selection and handling. Environmental management systems ensure compliance with standards and guarantee continuous improvement. Efficient use of all raw materials used is already being ensured.
In order for KURZ to achieve its ambitious sustainability goals in the long term together with its partners and customers, short-term intermediate goals were also formulated in this year’s report, which are intended to lead to a reduction in energy consumption and thus to an improvement in the CO2 balance. Among other things, in addition to the optimization of the already existing photovoltaic system, the construction of the company’s own solar carport on the company premises in Fürth is to be completed by the end of 2024.
Values of the family business
At KURZ, the values of a family-owned business - such as employee protection, work-life balance, and personal and professional development - are central to our actions. Here, too, the company consistently pursues its set goals. KURZ provides its employees with support in the areas of eldercare and childcare, and promotes professional and part-time training, as well as corporate health management. KURZ was also able to increase the range of individual training courses for employees last year. The number of participants rose by more than 50% compared to the previous year.
The goal: A closed loop
With the KURZ take-back and recycling program RECOSYS® 2.0, the company opens up completely new possibilities in terms of sustainability. PET production residues from the graphics industry can be processed into recycled PET (rPET for short) for the first time. This, in turn, can be reused as a RECOSYS® rPET raw material for the manufacture of plastic bottles or packaging. With the help of RECOSYS® 2.0, Scope 3 emissions, i.e. greenhouse gas emissions related to the disposal of transfer products, can be reduced by up to 90%. We want to keep production backlogs as low as possible, in order to conserve resources. In this way, the company is taking a big step closer to its vision of a closed loop.
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