An active contribution to enviromental protection – our management approach
As part of its energy and environmental management system, the Zeppelin Group is committed to continuously improving its energy and environmental performance in order to protect the environment, prevent environmental pollution, reduce global warming, and strengthen its market position. Work is always carried out in accordance with the principle of prudence, i.e. potential negative impacts on the environment are reduced as far as possible from the outset and, in the best-case scenario, completely avoided.
The Management Board actively promotes target achievement by providing the necessary resources, data and information, and appoints an energy and environmental management officer who continuously improves the management systems in accordance with ISO 14001 and ISO 50001. This person will be supported in the implementation by further contact persons in the individual companies. Zeppelin naturally complies with the statutory requirements and all other binding obligations in the energy and environmental sector. The relevant procedures and specifications for alignment, development, monitoring, and improvement of the management system are described in the management manual. The integrated environmental policy as well as the strategic direction and all objectives and measures derived from it are reviewed at regular intervals and, if necessary, adapted to changing underlying conditions. Once a year, a management review is held with the Group Management Board to assess the effectiveness of the management systems. The effectiveness of the energy and environmental management system was confirmed for 2023.
The scope of the energy and environmental management system extends across all German companies and is covered by a matrix certification. As part of the matrix certification, an energy management system according to ISO 50001 was also implemented in Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, and Denmark. In addition to energy management, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, Denmark and the Czech Republic have local certificates for an environmental management system in accordance with ISO 14001.
Group financing with clear sustainability objectives is important for Zeppelin. For this reason, particular focus was placed on the integrated green loan clause with Group-wide sustainability targets in the summer 2023 renegotiation of the syndicated loan, which has been in place since 2011. This was supplemented by intermediate targets in the areas of CO2, energy and fresh water savings. The achievement of the sustainability targets has a positive and negative impact on the interest on loans. In addition to implementing efficiency and savings measures, an annual external audit of the non-financial key figures on energy and water consumption as well as CO2 emissions is required for a successful target evaluation. In 2023, the first audit was successfully carried out to confirm the 2022 data pool for considering the sustainability targets in the syndicated loan agreement. The first review of target achievement for the 2023 fiscal year will take place in 2024.