Our goal is to become climate neutral!", with this they also took a clear position on CO₂ emissions. But: How can a company become and then remain climate neutral?
Avoiding, reducing and offsetting CO₂ emissions
As a company, we want to keep our ecological footprint as small as possible. To do this, we need to further reduce our CO₂ emissions, which roughly result from our electricity consumption, heating and mobility.
The CO₂ account of denkwerk 2021
Heating – 9.7 tons of CO₂
At denkwerk Cologne, we use a waste product of electricity generation: Our headquarters is on the district heating grid. This is how we heat with waste heat.
Travel – 4.6 tons of CO₂
As a result of the pandemic, we as a company have changed our travel behavior. Many meetings take place exclusively digitally.
Fleet – 23.4 tons
However, we did not go completely without customer meetings in 2021. Currently, our leased vehicles run on fossil fuels.
Electricity – 61.3 tons
The largest item of our CO₂ consumption comes from the use of our internal servers as well as computers, laptops and monitors.
90 tons of CO₂ - how much is that anyway?
11,250 people really switch off their TV for 1 year instead of leaving it in standby mode
450,500 kilometers by car (consumption 8.5 liters)
236,790 kilometers by airplane
23 people do not take a long-distance trip from Frankfurt am Main to New York (there and back)
How we make the world a little better
Even less heating and travel? That's hardly possible for us. Because: These two items have already reached very good values on our CO₂ account. At denkwerk, we have long since stopped using domestic flights as a means of transport. From our four locations, we reach our customers easily by rail and then by public transport. Most of the time.
Our balance sheet has optimization potential: The denkwerk fleet is at the top of the list. Our vehicles will be phased out when our existing leasing contracts expire and we will switch to electric vehicles. For this purpose, a charging station for e-cars is being planned at the Cologne site.
On the subject of electricity: Of course we consume electricity – we can't deny or prevent that. Since we don't use air conditioning in the summer, we continue to keep our electricity consumption as low as possible with more than 220 employees.
How did denkwerk become climate neutral?
In 2021, our carbon footprint was 90 tons. We want to compensate for this. There are an infinite number of certificates that promise CO₂ compensation. You first have to get your head around that. The important thing for us is: no more greenwashing.
"You should be sceptical because there are trustworthy certificates, medium-trustworthy certificates and junk certificates, all of which are equally buyable and, especially if you want to greenwash, are the first port of call for many companies."
Marco Zingler, General Manager at denkwerk
Our pick: MoorFutures. What is it all about?
Since our four locations are in Germany and we are looking for trustworthy certificates whose inventory is also traceable and controllable in the long term, we chose MoorFutures from Germany.
Did you know?
Peatlands store CO₂ in their peat – and do so particularly effectively.
Peatlands store twice as much carbon compared to all forests worldwide.
MoorFutures guarantees us monitoring of peatlands for the next 100 years and so new peat can be produced.
Trust is good – control is better
We wanted to know, of course: Did we choose a trustworthy certificate or not? The Bundesumweltamt (Federal Environmental Agency), the Landesumweltamt (State Environmental Agency) and the independent testing service provider TÜV Rheinland agree: MoorFutures is a very good choice for denkwerk and an offset in Germany. If not even a gold standard!
denkwerk is transparent – here's how it continues
We have disclosed our carbon footprint to you for 2021. This is also planned for the next years.
Not only in the near future, but already now, environmentally conscious actions are indispensable for us as an agency. Through regular exchange at denkwerk, we continue to set a green direction as a company and can thus create sustainable ways of thinking.
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