Environment

How we make an active contribution to environmental protection.

CO2e-Emissions

Emissions - they are essential for Peppermint as a manufacturing company. In the Corporate Carbon Footprint, we record direct and indirect emissions annually and convert them into CO2e equivalents. Our focus: to collect production-related emissions and reduce them within our factory gates (gate-to-gate).

For our gate-to-gate balance, we look at emissions in Scopes 1, 2 and parts of Scope 3 emissions. Scope 1 is about emissions that occur directly and on our plant sites. The main source of these emissions is the combustion of fuel oil and natural gas to produce saturated steam. Scope 2 is about emissions caused by electricity generation and transport through the power grid. The purchase of electrical energy is crucial here.
The significantly smaller share in our gate-to-gate balance is taken up by the components of Scope 3 emissions considered here. Since we can influence the business travel of our employees, our waste and our water consumption, we include these in our gate-to-gate balance.

Raw materials and their logistics account for the majority of scope 3 emissions for us. We cannot influence these directly and therefore they take on a separate role in our accounting. In order to reduce the corporate carbon footprint including all raw materials, it is usually necessary for the entire supply chain to act. However, the market does not always offer an alternative with a lower CO2e backpack. For this reason, we want to develop a strategy together with our suppliers on how to reduce scope 3 emissions.

Greenhouse gas-Emissions

Emissions of the Peppermint Group according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG)

SCOPE 3

indirect

  • Use of wool, cotton, chemicals
  • Packages
  • Transport from the supplier to us
  • Approach of our employees
  • Textile waste, paper/cardboard, residual waste, ...
  • Business trips of our employees
  • Water for dyeing and sizing

SCOPE 2

indirect

  • Power supplied
  • District heat

SCOPE 1

direct

  • Heat (natural gas/heating oil)
  • Fuels (gasoline/diesel)
  • Refrigerant

SCOPE 3

indirect

  • Transport of our products to the customer
upstream operations

Scope 3:

Indirect emissions in the upstream supply chain

Peppermint

Scope 1:

direct emissions generated by production of our facilities

Scope 2:

Indirect emissions generated outside at the  power plant.

downstream operations

Scope 3:

Indirect emissions from the downstream supply chain

Greenhouse gas-Emissions

Emissions of the Peppermint Group according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG)

SCOPE 3

indirect

  • Use of wool, cotton, chemicals
  • Packages
  • Transport from the supplier to us
  • Approach of our employees
  • Textile waste, paper/cardboard, residual waste, ...
  • Business trips of our employees
  • Water for dyeing and sizing
upstream operations

Scope 3:

Indirect emissions in the upstream supply chain

SCOPE 2

indirect

  • Power supplied
  • District heat

SCOPE 1

direct

  • Heat (natural gas/heating oil)
  • Fuels (gasoline/diesel)
  • Refrigerant
Peppermint

Scope 1:

direct emissions generated by production of our facilities

Scope 2:

Indirect emissions generated outside at the  power plant.

Scope 3:

Indirect emissions from the downstream supply chain

SCOPE 3

indirect

  • Transport of our products to the customer
What are we currently causing (gate-to-gate)?
17300 t

CO2e-Emissions (2022)

29900 t (2021)

17,300 tons: These CO2e emissions are within our direct sphere of influence. By switching our energy sources to lower CO2e alternatives, we can already save a significant amount of emissions. In addition, the reduction in our electricity, gas and oil purchases is making a positive contribution to the balance.

Our energy purchases represent the main source of emissions and are therefore the largest area where we can take action to reduce gate-to-gate emissions. By switching three more sites to green power, we were able to reduce emissions by 12,600 metric tons of CO2e compared with the previous year.

The mobility of our employees is the second largest source and therefore just as important. Positive changes in these aforementioned areas have a noticeable impact on our overall balance sheet.

PEPVISION

Reduction of CO2e-Emissions caused at the sites by 65 percent by 2030 compared with the base year 2019

How do we achieve this goal? In addition to the various technical savings projects, we changed our energy procurement at the beginning of 2022. We now purchase green electricity at four of our six sites, covering around 40 percent of our electricity requirements. This will enable us to reduce our CO2e emissions by around 20 percent.

The next major challenge is the substitution of fossil fuels in steam generation for our production processes.

 

CO2e-Balance

In order for Peppermint to become a carbon neutral group of companies, we must fully account for Scope 3 emissions from the supply chain. Our production and consumable materials are among our largest sources of emissions. Together with our suppliers, we are investigating whether more climate-friendly alternatives are available at cost-covering prices. In doing so, we also want to consider and reduce their Scope 1 and 2 emissions. In this way, we can make a positive contribution to emissions throughout the supply chain.

PEPVISION

Climate neutral
(Scope 1, 2 und 3) until 2045

The fact is that climate change is advancing at breakneck speed. It is therefore not surprising that the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report describes climate change as a man-made reality. According to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in half to reach the Paris climate agreement of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

With our PepVisions, individual education and persuasion, we want to make our contribution and bring about a rethink in our supply chain.

"Thinking about the future: we do this by being careful with our environment and its resources."


Florian Lieberwirth, Sustainability Team

Energy

Was beziehen wir aktuell?
62 GWh

Energiebezug 2022

65 GWh (2021)

In 2022, our energy consumption was reduced to 62 GWh despite an increase in output. The reduction was achieved through investments in more efficient production equipment, economical cross-cutting technologies, and reductions in base loads.

Peppermint is committed to reducing energy purchases and associated energy-related output. Modern, energy-efficient production machinery and support processes such as compressed air generation play a critical role in this effort. Efficiency cannot always be increased by a replacement investment. For this reason, we are optimizing our existing plants in accordance with the ISO 50001 energy management standard. For example, we have set ourselves the goal of not allowing unavoidable waste heat to escape unused into the environment. To generate hot process water or to support heating systems, we use flash steam from the dyeing process or warm exhaust air from compressed air generation.

More than ten years ago, we introduced an energy management system - and at the same time established our energy team. It is staffed with various people at our sites and has an overarching management representative. In this way, we utilize synergies, monitor existing plants with key figures and evaluate new savings projects.

PEPVISION

Continuous reduction of specific energy consumption

To improve energy-related performance, we record and evaluate energy use, consumption and efficiency. Through the gradual digitization of the meter landscape and operational data collection, we can automatically generate evaluations and archive data. This enables us to evaluate key energy consumers and their influencing variables in detail.

Resources

Water, waste and paper: We take a close look at these areas to assess our resource consumption. With targeted measures, we take responsibility for the entire manufacturing process of our products and thus make it more sustainable.

PEPVISION

Continuous reduction of water use

Our processes have a high water consumption. Our dyehouse has a significant influence on this demand. In addition to optimized production processes, we focus on innovative water-saving processes to achieve continuous reductions. Furthermore, we cannot completely avoid wastewater. We therefore regard wastewater as a resource that we want to return to the process.

Our drinking water consumption decreased in 2022. The reasons for this can be found in the reduction of production volumes in individual product lines on the one hand, but also in the improvement of specific water use.

We recognize that simply recording drinking water consumption is not enough. In the future, we will record and analyze total water use at our sites in order to introduce targeted reduction measures. We remain committed to further reducing drinking water use and to using alternative water sources, especially industrial water, to protect this precious resource.

PEPVISION

Increase waste recycling rate to 98% by 2030

The lowest possible volume of waste: This goal has a high priority for us. Regular waste analyses, uniform separation of the materials used and the greatest possible recycling of materials are our basic rules. For example, we work with partner companies that recycle residual fibers.

PEPVISION

Reduce paper consumption by 50% by 2030 compared to 2019 baseline.

We are further expanding the digitization of work processes at our sites. With digital working methods and digital document management, we are on the way to a paperless office. And we compensate for unavoidable paper use with sustainably certified products.

Drinking water consumption
84 Mio

Liters in 2022

87 million liters (2021)

Waste recycling rate
86 %

In 2022

88 % (2021)

Paper consumption
516 T Sheets

In 2022

537 T sheets (2021)