Dr. König, you – alongside Nicolas Zarak, the Head of Quality Management – have the very important task of making the CHIRON Group sustainable. On your colleague's LinkedIn profile, he quotes the Chinese proverb: »The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.« So, this begs the question: How would you rate the commitment to sustainability shown by CHIRON and the CHIRON Group before now?
Well, this year we’re celebrating 100 years of CHIRON. That in itself is proof that our actions have been future-oriented for far longer than just the last 20 years. If you look at it that way, then we've always been »sustainable«. And that is something we drive forward in the CHIRON Group too. Now and in the future, we are committed to organizing our economic and social interests in such a way that the third bottom line, the environment, is given equal status in our corporate strategy. We are conscious of our responsibility, which is why we as a company are taking great strides in numerous projects to reduce our carbon footprint.

On the subject of responsibility: Recognizing responsibility is one thing, documenting it is quite another. How does the CHIRON Group substantiate its commitment in matters of the environment?
Our Neuhausen and Tuttlingen sites in Germany are re-certified on an annual basis, in line with the DIN EN ISO 14001:2015 standard for environmental management and the DIN ISO 50001:2018 standard for energy management. For 2022, we are planning to self-certify our products in terms of their carbon footprint, in accordance with the specifications of the DIN EN ISO 14064 standard for greenhouse gas reporting. This shows us where we are at and where action is still needed. We have also partnered with the Blue Competence sustainability initiative from the VDMA. This commits us to 12 guiding sustainability principles for mechanical and plant engineering, which sum up our commitment to the environment in a nutshell: To shape the world of tomorrow through technology, to achieve more from fewer resources, to take responsibility, to set an example.

Producing machining centers is an energy-intensive business; the majority of energy used in the CHIRON Group Precision Factory is electricity. Where do you source your electricity from and what action are you taking to become carbon-neutral?
That's right, 75 percent to be precise. But without the special construction techniques, it would be more: Thanks to concrete core activation, we are able to keep the temperature inside the building within a narrow tolerance to create the conditions needed for precision assembly using very little energy. We also use the waste heat from the machinery and operate ventilation systems using thermal recovery. In fact, in the Precision Factory we will have reduced our emissions to zero as early as next year, which will make it carbon neutral. We currently only buy green electricity, and from mid-2022, 30 percent of our electricity demand will be covered by energy generated from a solar power plant just up on the roof. Making the heat energy at Tuttlingen and Neuhausen more environmentally friendly is another matter, however. Proposals for this are underway at the moment.

Carbon-neutrality sounds all well and good, but it doesn't actually reduce consumption. How are you going to achieve savings in that regard?
We have in fact already made savings by concentrating production at the CHIRON Group Precision Factory and administration at the Tuttlingen site. This has reduced the need for transportation and storage and enables us to react faster – lowering costs, and energy consumption. But of course, we still need to go further to create significant savings outside of the Precision Factory. That's why we launched the »Sustainability at CHIRON Group« program. Through this initiative, we set out to answer the following questions: Where are we at currently? Where is there the greatest need for action? Where is there potential? As our first step, we teamed up with Bosch Climate Solutions in the first quarter of 2021 to devise a climate strategy for the CHIRON Group. Next, it was a matter of harnessing the potential this had highlighted and to turn the findings into real action.

You're certainly asking all the right questions, the important questions – so, what are the answers?
As for where we are at, I think we can safely say we are already in a very good position. For example, numerous studies have demonstrated that the energy consumption of machining centers is at its highest during its useful life. That's why all our machining centers and manufacturing solutions feature cutting-edge technology and are designed so that our customers can manufacture efficiently with excellent results on a long-term basis. We get positive feedback about this from our customers; for them, our machining centers clearly represent an investment in sustainability. And to answer the other questions: We are continuously analyzing the measures we've already implemented, we are surveying consumption rates and identifying the areas where more still needs to be done. This transparency is essential for us to be able to prioritize, to set clear goals and to achieve these in the planned time frame.

The CHIRON Group is both a customer and a supplier. Which role do you take when it comes to increasing sustainability?
We keep in constant contact with our customers, many of whom themselves supply to OEMs, whose sustainability targets they have to fulfill and this includes ensuring their partners do the same – as do we with our partners. In light of this, we see ourselves as a multiplier. We learn from one another, and as a link in the supply chain we also take part in training at the OEM and pass this knowledge on. Above all, we keep a dialog going with our major suppliers, to ensure specifications or guidelines are being applied here too and are implemented as necessary.

You have talked about the sustainability of the products themselves. But »Sustainability at CHIRON Group« also incorporates the production in the Taicang Innovation Factory and the branches around the world. What is the situation there?
Of course, the whole production process and all our branches are included in the program. We start by evaluating the findings here, refine them, introduce additional measures and gradually roll these out worldwide. The Taicang Innovation Factory complies with the latest international standards, including environmental standards. All over the world, there are already lots of measures that have a positive impact on our sustainability credentials. Window renovations, heating controls, even seemingly trivial things like ventilating a room thoroughly for a short time rather than keeping the windows ajar for hours on end. We were recently able to make our refueling climate-neutral using one of our fuel cards. This was a small project, but one which we were able to decide upon and initiate all in the space of a day thanks to immediate and uncomplicated coordination with the management team. Initiatives like Happy Gardening at CHIRON China are also »sustainable«, they reduce the environmental footprint and also give employees a sense of responsibility for the climate and the environment.

So, the approach the CHIRON Group is taking is a long-term commitment?
Of course, in everything we do, we're in it for the long term. It is a process of change. Analysis, strategy, implementation. It may not sound particularly exciting, but it's the right way for us. Every day, we hear that the contents within the green packaging is not necessarily all that green. That's why our commitment to sustainability follows the same tried-and-tested principle embodied by CHIRON and the CHIRON Group: First, we apply our expertise, produce conclusive findings, then we discuss them. For instance, in our first sustainability report, which is scheduled for 2022.

To find out more about the sustainability of products and services from the CHIRON Group, take a look in speedfactor 01/2021.