Greif Textile Mietsysteme

Greif Textile Mietwäsche complements sustainability efforts with company-wide carbon footprint calculation and UNGC report

case study greif

Being specialized in the hotel and catering business, Greif Textile Mietsysteme partners with various hotel chains and family businesses all over Germany. The certified linen rental system complies with the highest requirements regarding support and quality.
From the small ironing booth founded by Franziska Steinbichler in Augsburg in 1922, Greif Textile Mietsysteme grew into a modern textile service company with ten locations all over Germany. With 1.300 employees and highly productive laundries, Greif Textile Mietsysteme is one of the market leader in its branch.
„DFGE supported us by calculating our Corporate Carbon Footprint. The results gave us a comprehensive picture about the main sources of our emissions, and about which emissions saving measures have the best impact.”
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Martin Greif, CEOGreif Textile Mietsysteme

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Challenge

Greif Textile Mietsysteme, located in Augsburg, is already active in the sustainability field, and plans to further develop these activities. DFGE could support Greif for the first time in 2015, wenn Greif decided to determine the Corporate Carbon Footprint for the first time. The corporate carbon footprint comprises all climate-relevant emissions which accrue through business operations. DFGE employs here the DFGE Top-Down Approach, which makes it possible to calculate a reliable value for the corporate greenhouse gas emissions in just a few weeks.

In the first year, data from calendar year 2014 were used to calculate the carbon footprint for Scope 1 (direct emissions from fuel consumption) and Scope 2 (indirect emissions from energy purchases). Since then, the ongoing collaboration enables to further refine the calculations by request of Greif. Greif became aware of DFGE through a recommendation of a long time customer.

Calculation of Scope 3 emissions and compilation of sustainability activities in a sustainability report.

Solution

For an increasing accuracy of the calculations, it is necessary to continuously expand and refine the data collection. After calculating the first Corporate Carbon Footprint (Scope 1 and 2), it was decided in 2016 to also include emissions from Scope 3. The calculation of these emissions is linked to a higher complexity, as all indirect upstream and downstream value chain emissions (relevant, indirect emissions) have to be considered. At the same time, the carbon footprint should be broken down according to the company locations. Again, DFGE was able to deliver results in a timely way, making use of the DFGE Top Down Approach, which give a more detailed view on Greif’s emission sources. However, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were not the only sustainability field Greif was active in during the last years: in order to frame all the various sustainability activities in a structured way, Greif decided to create a sustainability report. This is the reason why Greif decided in 2017 – after consultation with DFGE – to join the UN Global Compact (UNGC) and therefore to publish an annual sustainability report (COP – Communication on Progress).

The focus of this United Nations initiative is to ensure compliance with 10 principles in the fields of human rights, working conditions, environmental protection, and fight against corruption. The more than 12.000 participants worldwide commit by joining the UNGC to actively promote the 10 principles, and to publicly report progress on them every year. At the one hand, UNGC serves as a standard-compliant frame for a company’s sustainability reporting, on the other hand it is a kind of seal proving a participant’s corporate responsibility.
DFGE completely took over the UNGC reporting for Greif. Considering the 10 principles, core areas for Greif were determined, and for every principle, necessary guidelines, measures, monitoring possibilities , results and future goals were compiled. This way, existing processes were embedded into the UNGC framework, and gaps could be determined, which can subsequently be closed step by step. The first Communication on Progress was published in 2017 as a company sustainability report.

Implementation and communication of a ‘green’ mission

Result

This improvement of the carbon footprint in terms of quality, as well as the creation of a UNGC sustainability report helps Greif to plan further sustainability activities, as possible and reasonable measures can be prioritized. DFGE will also in future support Greif Textile Mietwäsche in extending its sustainability measures.

„The results from the carbon footprint calculations gave us theoretical input for further projects, which help to extend our sustainability activities and to further strengthen our contribution to environmental protection.” Mario Neipp – Head of Marketing & Innovation at Greif Textile Mietsysteme

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