Sustainability as a success factor in the rail industry
Customer: HAN Rail GmbH
Category: Track construction, railroad industry
Date: May 2025
HAN Rail GmbH (HAN Rail for short) is a specialist in safety services for track construction sites based in North Rhine-Westphalia. As a reliable partner of Deutsche Bahn, the company undertakes a wide range of rail construction and maintenance projects, thus ensuring an efficient transport infrastructure in Germany.
In order to meet the growing demands in the area of sustainability, including those of Deutsche Bahn, HAN Rail decided to take part in the sustainability assessment by EcoVadis with the support of DFGE.
Adem Kartal & Jörg Koßek
Managing director and operations manager – HAN Rail GmbH
“Thanks to DFGE, we were able to structure our ESG activities and meet the extensive documentation requirements of EcoVadis. We are very satisfied with the cooperation and the results achieved.”
Challenges
Increased sustainability requirements of the customer: Deutsche Bahn
The high demands of HAN Rail’s (major) customers are increasingly also affecting the area of environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects. In order to ensure a sustainable supplier landscape in the future, Deutsche Bahn in particular has been demanding compliance with certain minimum requirements in areas such as the environment, labor and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement since the beginning of 2025.
In order to meet these requirements, HAN Rail decided to participate in the sustainability assessment by EcoVadis.
However, as a small, medium-sized company, HAN Rail only has limited internal capacity to manage sustainability issues in a structured manner. At the same time, Deutsche Bahn, as the main client, required proof of existing sustainability activities in the above-mentioned areas – a major challenge, as HAN Rail had no previous experience with this assessment framework.
Solution
Targeted document analysis and knowledge building
In order to implement the project in a targeted and efficient manner, HAN Rail brought DFGE on board as a partner. With its many years of experience in ESG management and special expertise in EcoVadis projects, DFGE was the ideal choice.
In close cooperation with DFGE, a structured overview of ESG-relevant topics was initially created within four months, during which HAN Rail’s existing measures and guidelines were analyzed and documented in a targeted manner.
DFGE guided HAN Rail through the EcoVadis process, assisted with the revision of suitable guidelines and the compilation of the evidence – always with a view to the industry-specific requirements in the construction and infrastructure sector. This ensured that existing sustainability activities – which had already been implemented but were not documented in a structured manner – were properly consolidated.
Result
EcoVadis Gold Medal
HAN Rail GmbH scored 79 points in its EcoVadis assessment, easily meeting the minimum requirement of Deutsche Bahn.
This puts the company in the top 5% of all companies assessed by EcoVadis in this sector.
Thanks to the cooperation with DFGE, HAN Rail:
- Successfully meet the requirements of Deutsche Bahn.
- Systematically record and document its current ESG situation.
- Lay a solid foundation for further sustainability improvements.
Christoph Rüdel
Quality management & sustainability coordination – HAN Rail GmbH“The investment has paid off: we have gained important insights and built up knowledge in ESG management. This enables us not only to structure our sustainability efforts internally, but also to make them transparent externally – to our customers such as Deutsche Bahn. An experienced partner like DFGE was important to us for this.”
Outlook
Following the successful entry, HAN Rail:
- A targeted further development of its corporate strategy and the implementation of additional measures in the ESG area
- Preparing for the next EcoVadis assessment with the aim of maintaining its outstanding performance or possibly achieving an even higher score.
- Broader integration of external evidence to validate its sustainability performance.
