Minister Svenja Schulze handed over a total of 5 awards
For the first time, the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the Association for Sustainability and Eco-Management Professionals e. V. (VNU) and the German EMAS Advisory Board (UGA) jointly present the German Environmental Management Award, honouring outstanding achievements in climate and environmental protection and environmental communication.
A total of 78 proposals were submitted, of which 13 activities from a sum of 12 companies were nominated for the award in three categories. The Association for Sustainability and Eco-Management Professionals e. V. was actively involved in the awarding through Anna-Katharina Zubrod (jury - best environmental statement) and Stephan Schunkert (jury - best climate protection activity). The VNU congratulates all winners for their engagement and the recognition by the German Environmental Management Award 2021.
Three Categories
Category 1: Best environmental protection activity
Awards were given for environmental care and sustainability activities and projects that have already been implemented and evaluated within the framework of environmental management to improve the environmental performance of an organisation's processes, products or services - or across organisations.
The Fuß-Orthopädie-Technik Roman Eggs GmbH reduced a plastic casting compound with ingredients that are partly dangerous to health and the environment by 95 % in the production of footbed mouldings and now uses cork with a milling process instead.
Category 2: Best climate protection activity
In this category, all activities and projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to improve the climate balance of processes, products or services of an organisation can be submitted. Here, too, the initiatives should already have been implemented and evaluated; overarching measures and cooperations are possible.
Through the initiative of Andechser Molkerei Scheitz GmbH, approx. 3,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions could be avoided within one year. To achieve this, the award winner launched the Klima.Bauer programme with the Agroecology Science Institute and 70 contract farmers were actively supported in climate protection with CO2 avoidance and binding methods. Additional services for bioagriculture and biodiversity supported these efforts.
Uzin Utz AG looks back on more than 100 years of experience as a supplier of flooring systems and has now become the first company in Germany to launch flooring materials with a biomass balance approach. This balancing is already established in power generation and is now being transferred to a production process. Ecological components, such as binders based on renewable raw materials or biomass waste, are fed into the production of the partner BASF SE and mathematically assigned to the final product. About 3,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions can thus be avoided annually.
Category 3: Best EMAS Environmental Statement
Companies and organisations with an active Emas registration can participate. We are looking for best practice examples of Emas environmental statements that are characterised by a high quality and clarity of data and information. In addition to criteria such as completeness, comprehensibility and graphical design, the criteria also include how the declaration is used in the organisation's environmental communication.
Neumarkter Lammsbräu is one of the pioneers in environmental management, as the first environmental statement was already validated in February 1996 and the company was listed in the EMAS register. For the application for the German Environmental Management Award 2021, the company submitted a sustainability report with an integrated environmental statement and convinced the jury, for example, with the high informative value of the report, a greenhouse gas balance for Scope 1, 2, 3 as well as the transparent presentation of goals and their degree of implementation.
hanseWasser understands itself as an environmental service provider for the city of Bremen, to which climate and environmental protection are important. Since 2012, hanseWasser has been registered in the EMAS register and the submitted environmental statement describes in detail and in a comprehensible manner the extensive climate protection activities, such as the energy optimisation of the sewage treatment plant operation, the operation of a 2 MW wind turbine, the installation of modern combined heat and power plants or the implementation of a greenhouse gas balance. The structure of the environmental statement according to environmental aspects also enables the targeted, environment-related identification of the company's environmental impacts, and a traffic light system indicates the status of current projects and goals.