Hamburg Süd Takes Environmental Responsibilities Seriously

Germany's Hamburg Süd Group has recently published its first Responsibility Report titled 'Making it our Business'.

The report documents not only the ecological but also the social and societal responsibility the company exercises. At the same time it presents in a detailed and vivid way the concrete measures with which Hamburg Süd and Aliança live up to this responsibility.

“We take account of the protection of natural resources in each entrepreneurial and organisational decision we make,” explains Dr Ottmar Gast, Chairman of the Executive Board of Hamburg Süd. “Accordingly, our environmental accounting system, introduced in 2010, takes as its goal the continuous reduction of environmental impact both at sea and on land.” The core element of this environmental accounting system is an input-output balance sheet, for which numerous departments at corporate headquarters and 80 Hamburg Süd locations spread around the globe are involved in supplying environmental data. “This enables us to see precisely what goes into the company in the way of energy carriers and raw materials, and what subsequently comes out in the way of emissions and waste water. Because genuine stewardship requires transparency,” Dr Ottmar Gast adds.

Within the context of its environmental protection measures, the Hamburg Süd Group has set itself concrete and binding environmental targets. Thus by 2012 the company aims to reduce the C02 emissions of owned and chartered container vessels per unit of transport capacity (TEUkm) by 26 per cent compared with 2009 levels. A further target is to increase the proportion of floors made from fast-growing bamboo in dry-container newbuilds to 80 per cent by 2015. In parallel – also by 2015 – the energy consumption of existing refrigerated containers is to be lowered by 15 per cent and that of newbuilds by no less than 20 per cent compared with 2010.  

Free download of the comprehensive 70-page report is available here.