Dear readers,

Our actions today will have an impact on the lives and the economic activities of future generations. Companies therefore have the task — and the duty — of operating sustainably, protecting the climate, conserving energy and resources, and ensuring a collective existence that is based on fairness and equal opportunity. And that’s exactly what we’re doing at Körber. Sustainability is part of our corporate strategy and firmly embedded in our value chains.

In the same way that we are shaping the technological transformation under our joint Körber brand with our five Business Areas, we have also defined a shared goal for our sustainability strategy: “Our activities enable a better life for current and future generations.” Everything we do as a company is oriented toward that goal. 

Our founder, Kurt A. Körber, was convinced that “continued environmental protection does not diminish a company’s earning power, but helps to safeguard it in the long term.” He believed that companies that are aware of their responsibility play a leading role in this regard. They should take the initiative themselves and reduce their impact on the environment — “independently of the decisions of the legislators.” As a home for entrepreneurs at Körber, we still share this perspective.

We are taking on the responsibility of handing down to future generations a healthy planet where they have a full spectrum of opportunities for action. Accordingly, we have set ourselves a whole series of goals, and we look forward to presenting our progress toward them step by step in this sustainability report and future reports.

With regard to the environment, we are focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with the ambitious goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2025. In the social dimension, we are focusing on being a fair and attractive employer. In the corporate governance dimension, our central task is to verify the environmental and social practices of our suppliers, either newly or even more strictly, as the case may be. In our “House of Sustainability” we have also defined, for ourselves and our stakeholders, many additional important sustainability aspects that we will implement in the years ahead.

As a globally operating technology group, we bear particular responsibility for our employees all over the world. That includes fair and safe working conditions as well as cultural diversity, equity, and opportunities for codetermination and advanced professional development. Above all, we are responsible for our employees’ health and well-being. There could not have been a bigger stress test for this responsibility than the worldwide spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. 

The coronavirus pandemic taught us that trust in science and investments in science can save lives — especially if they go hand in hand with technologies. The provision of high-performance packaging machines from our Business Area Pharma enabled 3.5 billion doses of vaccine to be packaged in a short period of time — using monomaterials that were 100% recyclable and contained no plastic.

We also saw at first hand how agile and adaptive people’s actions can be in their private as well as their professional spheres. During this phase, our teams all over the world did their utmost to protect our employees. When our employees’ tasks permitted, they worked from home as a matter of course. At the same time, by means of regular free antigen tests and hygiene protection measures in the workplace we ensured maximum safety for the employees working in our production facilities or doing other place-bound tasks.

For us, taking on responsibility also means learning from our experiences. For example, the coronavirus crisis showed how innovative digital technologies are changing collaboration in positive ways and thus making new flexible work models possible for our employees. Today these work models are a matter of course for us, and they will remain so in the future. 

At Körber we are harmonizing environmental, social, and economic aspects and clearly committing ourselves to the sustainability goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. As we implement the corresponding measures, we are focusing initially on the goals that we can directly influence through our business operations, such as “Good health and well-being” and “Climate action.”

We are in the midst of our measures to implement sustainability; however, this is our first group-wide sustainability report. This report shows where we stand and what we intend to accomplish, and it defines our status quo within an ongoing process. We regard sustainability as a continuing process that we will regularly report on here in the future. 

I would like to invite you to join us on this journey and engage in a dialog with us. Let’s work together to make our environment, and our world, better — for ourselves and all those who will follow us. 

Sincerely yours,
Erich Hoch
Chief Operations Officer (COO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Member of the Group Executive Board of Körber AG