Gold sustainability award for Liebherr

Independent corporate responsibility auditor EcoVadis has awarded Liebherr-MCCtec a gold medal rating for its work in four key areas: environment, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. Liebherr-MCCtec is part of the Liebherr Group and is a divisional holding company for Liebherr maritime cranes, crawler cranes, duty cycle crawler cranes, as well as pilling and drilling rigs for deep foundation work.

EcoVadis has over 75,000 participating companies and Liebherr said this award places it among the top five percent of all rated companies and within the top three percent of manufacturing companies worldwide.

“We have refreshed and expanded our corporate responsibility policy taking into account our long-term strategic goals, including defining targets for quantifiable KPIs in the areas of energy and employee health,” explained Tatjana Grissemann, corporate responsibility manager, Liebherr-MCCtec. “Furthermore, we have consolidated all locally collected indicators into an overall dashboard.

On the one hand, this will help us to set further strategic targets for the future. On the other hand, we now have all data required for the sustainability report that we plan to create next year.

“We have anchored sustainability management more firmly in our organisational structure. This has led to sustainability issues being planned and systematically implemented at a more strategic and overall level. We have also aligned our policy with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, derived concrete goals for our company and established key figures to monitor our progress. This year, we also made it clear to the outside world that sustainability is important to us by signing the UN Global Compact.

“In line with our commitment to continuously improve in order to reduce our environmental impacts and to shape long-term industry trends, we are driving forward the electrification of our construction machine portfolio. Many customers and cities are increasingly demanding minimal CO2 emissions and a significant reduction in noise pollution for their projects. Our emission-free products respond to these challenges. However, we also conduct research on alternative, climate-neutral drive concepts.

“This year we delivered the first mobile harbour crane which runs on fossil-free and almost emission-free HVO100 diesel. HVO renewable diesel is made of 100% renewable raw materials, so no new carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. It is produced through the hydro-treatment of vegetable oils and/or organic fats. These innovations contributed, among others, to a high score in the assessed category ‘Environment’, in which we are in the top five percent of companies rated by EcoVadis in our industry.

“Our recent success is not the end, merely a step along the way. We will continue to improve, as that is what we strive for. We have mapped out a future pathway and are working to embed a culture of assuming responsibility towards the environment and people at all levels of the company - from employees to management.

“Decarbonisation has become a strategic topic. We will continue to work on the reduction of greenhouse gas emission, both throughout the life cycle of our products and at corporate level. Furthermore, as part of the Liebherr Group we look forward to participating in a group-wide sustainability report, a further commitment to more transparency across our supply chains and the future of our planet.”