Climate protection

The KION Group fully intends to minimise its contribution to global warming and has dedicated a separate action field in its sustainability programme to climate protection. The company bases its activities on the Treaty of the Paris Conference on Climate Change and the objective stipulated therein of limiting global warming to below 2°C compared to the pre-industrial period.

In the KION Group’s sphere of influence, adverse environmental and social impacts can primarily be triggered by CO₂ emissions. Besides production-related energy use, these are generated predominantly during the products’ utilisation phase (see section on Products and services).

Also of internal relevance are production-related energy consumption (e.g. foundry, heating, ventilation, lighting) and transport-related consumption, e.g. for the operation of service vehicles or in-house logistics. Other impacting factors such as business travel or greenhouse gas emissions in the upstream chain have not yet been addressed directly.

In dedicated workshops on climate management, a science-based climate target was developed for the KION Group (taking into account Science Based Target methodology). Accordingly, the company drafted an objective to reduce KION’s energy-related emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3) by 30 per cent by 2027. The corporate carbon footprint in 2017, which resulted from the use of energy in production, sales and service, serves as a benchmark. Scope 1 and 2 were examined in full during the analysis; Scope 3 emissions are currently being evaluated in connection with KION's energy use.

In the reporting period, this Group-wide climate target was broken down to the operating units. In addition, the company launched its Group-wide recording of CO₂ reduction measures, creating the prerequisites for efficient measures management (for corresponding measures, see Specific measures to reduce emissions). With its participation in the global Earth Hour on 24^th March 2018, the KION Group took a stance for climate protection and, like many other companies, turned off the lights at its Frankfurt headquarters. Furthermore, KION representatives participated in the dialogue-based Businesses for Climate Protection forum launched by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) in June 2016. The forum’s goal is to initiate specific climate protection measures at companies as a means to help achieve the climate protection targets.

The KION Group presents its greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the internationally recognised rules of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This means that consumption data is converted using emission factors derived from the database of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the United Kingdom (as of 2018). Emission factors for purchased electrical energy are based on data published by the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA, as of 2018). The KION Group does not fall within the scope of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

Some 46.6 per cent of determined greenhouse gas emissions during the reporting period were generated directly at the KION Group, with 53.4 per cent attributable to indirect emissions.

Volatile organic compounds were mainly released in the paint shops.

Energy use as a main driver

Greenhouse gas emissions at the KION Group result almost entirely from the use of energy (Table 10). Reducing the amount of energy consumption is thus the Group’s key lever in minimising its impact on climate change – and also one of the key environmental cost factors. The smelting process in the foundries and the use of service vehicles at sales and service units are particularly energy intensive. By 2020, the 25 reporting entities with the highest energy demands are to introduce energy management systems in accordance with ISO 50001.

In 2018, the KION Group used a total of 2,367 terajoules of energy (Table 12), whereby direct energy consumption accounted for 1,603 terajoules, and 799 terajoules were accounted for by transportation. 764 terajoules of energy were used indirectly Group-wide in 2018, i.e. primarily through purchased electricity.

Specific measures to reduce emissions

All KION Group organisational units continued to work on minimum energy standards in 2018. At various locations, environmental certifications provided the foundation for launching a continuous improvement process via the management systems (Table 6). Moreover, a coordinating KION function has access to all locations when it comes to planning building and plant engineering and can thus ensure that the minimum energy standards are considered.

To further reduce energy consumption, Group-wide measures were continued or newly implemented in 2018. These include optimisations in buildings (e.g. expansion of measuring networks, optimisation of lighting and heating systems, energetic refurbishment), renewals in the vehicle fleet and measures to raise employee awareness. 21 plants and 33 sales and service locations pursue their own energy-saving targets, which are tracked as part of internal sustainability reporting.

In the period under review, the effects of converting the electricity mix to renewable energies at the KION Group’s European sites were assessed.

26 units currently use renewable forms of energy, and 43 units have implemented green IT measures to reduce their energy consumption. A good example in this context is the Project Sunshine at the KION site in Summerville, South Carolina: A one-megawatt solar plant mounted on the roof of the building complex went into operation in 2018. The generated electricity equals on average about 80 per cent of the annual electricity consumption of the production at the site, offsetting more than 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions.

21 reporting entities have set specific emissions reduction targets, while 39 have made specific process optimisations, and 27 already use technologies to reduce GHG emissions.

Besides the production-related use of energy, the KION Group sees the greatest potential for reducing greenhouse gases in the use phase of its products. The company therefore plans to identify additional measures in the future (see section on Products and solutions). Product-specific lifecycle analyses and the evaluation of the entire LMH EMEA fleet have already been carried out. The areas of commuting, logistics and transport are seen as less relevant when it comes to the overall lifecycle assessment of the products examined. Nevertheless, the KION Group is trying to achieve improvements in these areas as well. For example, CO₂ emissions play a key role when purchasing new company vehicles. Furthermore, 56 reporting entities are working on specific measures to improve their transportation activities, including the optimisation of route planning and the use of GPS to avoid multiple trips.

All measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions follow clear principles. The company will constantly strive to achieve a reduction in its CO₂ emissions. If it cannot go any further, it will endeavour to substitute fuels with lower-emission fuels. And once this measure no longer delivers further reductions, it will then counter the impact of its CO₂ emissions through offsetting measures.

The regular sharing of experiences in the HSE network of experts, as well as measures to raise employee awareness such as the KION HSE Championship (see section on Employees), also help to anchor the climate protection goals in the mindset of the entire KION Group workforce. Activities in this field specifically involve KION Group executives who are briefed about the company’s climate protection measures and progress made at the KION Executive Summit. Relevant executive training courses were also continued in 2018. All in all, in 2018, the company’s comprehensive awareness-raising programmes on energy consumption and emissions already reached around 33 per cent of employees, particularly those at its production plants.