Third consecutive platinum certificate for sustainability

Hamburg: For the third time in a row, the international CSR rating agency EcoVadis has awarded Jungheinrich a platinum certificate for corporate responsibility. EcoVadis thus recognises Jungheinrich's outstanding commitment to the environment, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. With the platinum certification, EcoVadis once again confirms that Jungheinrich continues to rank among the top 1 per cent of the world's most sustainable companies. "Jungheinrich creates sustainable value. We aspire to combine economic success with ecological and social responsibility. EcoVadis's renewed platinum certification proves that we succeed in doing so. For us, it is both a confirmation and an obligation to continue to drive forward and expand our commitment in the future as part of our Strategy 2025+. Sustainability is and will remain the foundation of our Group activities," says Dr Lars Brzoska, Chairman of the Board of Management of Jungheinrich AG.

Pioneer in environmental protection and human rights

This year, EcoVadis particularly highlighted Jungheinrich's "outstanding" performance in the field of the environment. Here, the company achieved the maximum number of points thanks to its effective measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserve valuable resources, among other things. Jungheinrich has clearly committed to the 1.5-degree target and aims to establish CO2e-neutral business operations at all sites and plants worldwide by 2030. All Jungheinrich sites in Germany, including the six German factories, have been sourcing exclusively green electricity since as early as 2021. Since then, the Jungheinrich Group has continued to push ahead with the switch to renewable energies worldwide. In the meantime, the switch to green electricity has already been fully completed in 21 countries. An important factor in this is also the generation of the company's own solar power. To this end, the company is continuously driving forward the equipping of its sites with its own photovoltaic systems and most recently covered the parking lot of its corporate headquarters in Hamburg with a 1,100-square-metre photovoltaic system. Jungheinrich also conserves resources by remanufacturing used forklifts on an industrial scale. In this process, up to 99 per cent of the raw materials used in the truck are reused or recycled. Compared to new production, the company thus saves up to 80 per cent CO2e.

In addition, Jungheinrich makes great efforts to ensure compliance with human rights along its value chain. To this end, the company has expanded its existing sustainable procurement management system so that it takes human rights aspects into account in a special way. In order to tighten up internal processes for ensuring human rights due diligence, Jungheinrich has also implemented an appropriate risk management system and, in addition to a Human Rights Officer, has defined other responsibilities such as the Human Rights Council, consisting of human rights experts within the Group. Risk analyses are conducted regularly in order to identify, assess and prevent potential human rights violations at an early stage. 

The current platinum certification by EcoVadis is Jungheinrich's third top award in a row, following 2022 and 2021. Prior to this, the company had been awarded a gold certificate in both 2020 and 2019. EcoVadis is considered one of the world's leading institutions for assessing corporate responsibility. Only the most sustainable 1% of all companies assessed receives a top platinum certificate from EcoVadis. In total, EcoVadis analyses the sustainability management of more than 100,000 companies worldwide with regard to the environment, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.