Employees of E.G.O. Elektro-Gerätebau GmbH (E.G.O.), Oberderdingen forest official Michael Deschner, and members of the Nature Conservation Association (NABU) of the Bretten and Oberderdingen local groups met near Großvillars, Germany. Their joint task was to hang 50 nesting boxes in the forest to give birds and bats a place to nest. Nesting boxes make an important contribution to the preservation of native biodiversity, as natural nesting opportunities in old trees have become rarer due to ever shorter rotation lengths. Various nesting boxes were hung up, offering homes for tits, nuthatches, stock doves, tawny owls, and bats, after being selected by the experts from NABU. The costs for the nesting boxes were covered by E.G.O. A snack together after the work was done rounded off the activity. The nesting boxes will have to be cleaned once a year and the occupancy recorded.

Customer awards are always particularly valuable. After all, they show that the customer appreciates and wishes to reward the good work of their business partner. The Electrolux Group (Electrolux) nominated the E.G.O.-Group (E.G.O.) as one of the TOP suppliers in the Sustainability category. The household appliance manufacturer thus honored the progress that E.G.O. has made on the path to meeting Electrolux's sustainability goals. Even though it didn't come in first place this time, all E.G.O. employees are proud of the acknowledgement. The incentive to work even harder and more purposefully on sustainability goals is all the greater.

Not carelessly throwing packaging and other litter on the ground is a crucial factor on the road to a healthier environment. For #worldcleanupday2022, employees from all business groups helped to make the earth a little cleaner. Employees around the world collected litter for a whole day, making a significant contribution towards protecting the environment. Employees took part in this year's World Cleanup Day at the following sites: E.G.O. Componentes Electronicos, S.A., Queretaro, Mexico, E.G.O. Elektrikli Aletler Sanayi A.S., Ergene, Turkey, E.G.O. Polska Sp.z o.o., Lodz, Poland, BLANCO UK Ltd, London, United Kingdom, BLANCO America Inc., Lumberton, USA, BLANCO Canada Inc., Toronto, Canada, E.G.O. Elektro-Gerätebau GmbH, Oberderdingen, Germany, E.G.O. Produktion GmbH & Co. KG, Oberderdingen, Germany, BLANCO GmbH + Co KG, Oberderdingen, Germany, BLANC & FISCHER Corporate Services GmbH & Co. KG, Oberderdingen, Germany

Reduce printed materials, strengthen digital alternatives: at BLANCO, the circulation of printed product catalogs has been significantly reduced in line with this approach. The catalogs are also available in digital form; they can be accessed by customers at any time in a portal. In the kitchen studios, the consulting teams show the products on a tablet, for example. The employees magazine HORIZONTE, which BLANCO previously published in printed form three times a year, has also been converted to a digital format. And, paper calendars will no longer be given out. Besides paper and printing ink, these measures also reduce the need for transport. This not only impacts costs, but also has a positive effect on the environment. At the same time, BLANCO is raising employees' awareness for using digital alternatives.

Where is the most energy consumed? And how can this be changed? To improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions harmful to the climate, the companies of the BLANC & FISCHER Family Holding further expanded the monitoring of installations with high energy consumption in 2022. For this purpose, it records what are known as SEUs (Significant Energy Use)—in other words machines or processes that account for the largest share of the total energy consumption in a company. These include, for example, curing ovens like those used in thick-film production by the E.G.O.-Group. Appliances for cooling or compressed air production also usually require a lot of energy during operation. The objective is to gradually build up a common database to achieve the greatest possible transparency, which can then be used to determine where there is further potential for energy-saving measures and how these can be implemented.

Hardworking volunteers joined forces to help prune willow trees in the municipality of Oberderdingen, Germany. Employees of E.G.O. Elektro-Gerätebau GmbH in Oberderdingen and members of the Nature Conservation Association (NABU) of the Oberderdingen and Bretten local groups took part. Regular pruning, or pollarding, is the only way to maintain the typical shape of pollarded willows, and creates natural hollows that provide a home for birds such as little owls, but also bats and many insects.

With Triple P, sustainable management has found an official place in the BLANC & FISCHER Family Holding strategy. Eco-friendly HR management plays an important role in this. After a comprehensive audit regarding the sustainable contribution of HR processes to climate, species, and environmental protection, the BLANC & FISCHER Family Holding in Germany is awarded the "Certified Green House of Choice" seal and receives three green "Leaves." "HR has a great deal of leverage to help shape the company's contribution to climate protection," says Bernd Kratochwille, Managing Director/Head of Corporate Human Resources. Because the issue of sustainability is becoming increasingly important within the company, the award is not only extremely important for the public image, but it also enhances the company's attractiveness as an employer and assists in retaining and attracting employees.

Nine trainees from the BLANCO, B.PRO, and E.G.O. business groups have been successfully trained as energy scouts by Karlsruhe Chamber of Industry and Commerce. Energy scouts are trainees who train in energy efficiency topics alongside their apprenticeships, and document and implement this knowledge in practical projects. They not only learn the basics of energy technology, but also gain valuable experience in successfully managing projects and presenting them to decision-makers in the company. After the further training and workshops on energy technology, which also included the topics of climate protection, energy efficiency, and sustainability, as well as carrying out their own projects, the trainees received a certificate from Karlsruhe Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The technical project group consisting of Felix Arlt, Bayram Kosak, Robin Simon, and Lukas Goppelsröder was nominated by Karlsruhe Chamber of Industry and Commerce for the nationwide best award in the platform "Climate Protection Corporate Network" for their topic "Compressed air savings in the Training Academy".

E.G.O. Elektro-komponente d.o.o. (E.G.O.O. Croatia) produces thermostats in addition to switches and regulators. To reduce water consumption in this production area, the installation for adjusting the products was connected to a closed water cooling circuit. This is used to cool the process to 22 °C. By connecting to the water cooling system, the medium in the baths can be reduced by a further 7 to 15 °C for product adjustment. This is good for the environment in two respects: there is less wastewater and the more efficient use saves energy.

Ovens consume a lot of energy. This applies not only to our baking ovens in the kitchen, but also to large annealing furnaces such as those used in tubular heating element production at E.G.O. Elektrikli Aletler Sanayi A.S. On the one hand, a lot of energy is needed to produce heat, while at the same time part of the heat is lost again via the air. For the production of the tubular heating elements at the Turkish site of the E.G.O.-Group, special metal pipes must be heated. To reduce energy consumption in this step, the team redesigned these tubes—they are now only 12 millimeters thick instead of the previous 15 millimeters. The capacity of the annealing furnaces has been significantly improved, and fewer installations are now required for the same production volume. In addition, the on-site team has improved the insulation of the furnaces and the extraction process, which means less heat is lost. Overall, the annealing furnaces work much more energy-efficiently than before; the team has saved 460,000 kilowatt hours per year and reduced energy costs as well. In addition, this measure reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 191 tons of CO₂ equivalent per year.