Management Commitment

Sustainability has been at the heart of Pfleiderer’s business since it was founded over 130 years ago.

We demonstrate our commitment to sustainability through our concrete performance. We would like to emphasise the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in our direct and indirect electricity and heating requirements by 39% over the past three years. In addition, we have closely controlled, regional, and highly circular wood supply chain. We source 90% of the wood we use for our products from Germany and the remaining 10% from directly neighbouring countries. The majority of the wood we use in our products, 76%, are sawmill residues and recycled wood.  In line with our ESG targets, we had increased the ratio of post-consumer recycled wood at a fast pace to 50,7% - after 40% in 2020 - meaning we have exeeded the target value of 50% for 2025 ahead of schedule. Naturally, we control 100% of the origins of our wood raw materials through third-party-verified chain of custody.

As a “naturally sustainable” company, we are clearly committed to the Paris climate agreement goals and aim to achieve net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. We are also committed to the goals of the UN Global Compact and promote the Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, environmental protection and zero tolerance for corruption.

We work for our vision – this principle guides us in our daily actions so that we can become even more sustainable. We are constantly challenging ourselves in all aspects of sustainability and see it as our duty to improve in all areas.

With our new sustainability strategy, we have firmly incorporated the subject of sustainability into our corporate governance and operations. Our sustainability strategy sets our commitments that shall guide our actions and decisions in the years to come. Our sustainability strategy shall not remain a general conceptual framework. We have therefore translated our commitments into tangible actions and have set ourselves quantifiable targets that have a scientific foundation, and are committed to reporting transparently on our target achievements on a regular basis.

We are pleased to see that our efforts receive external recognition. Following last year’s great successes, rating agencies Morningstar Sustainalytics and EcoVadis once again placed us in the top tiers of all evaluated companies. Last but not least, we achieved the greatest success in the company’s history in terms of its ESG activities by winning the German Sustainability Award 2024 in the raw materials/wood processing category. An additional benefit of this success is that we now have a stronger and more credible voice in the media and public landscape, which we aim to use wisely for the mainstreaming of sustainability in our sector and our economy-at-large.