At RKT, sustainability is ingrained in our culture. For years, we’ve prioritized prudent energy and resource use to safeguard both people and the environment — driven as a corporate responsibility rather than just financial motives. We’ve invested in various technical innovations, from optimizing cooling towers to switching to LED lighting. While our focus is on sustainability, many of these initiatives have also paid off economically, demonstrating they’re not only environmentally sound but also smart business choices. In one example, implementing a heat recovery system enabled us to save over 1 million liters of heating oil over ten years. Read more about this heat recovery project here.
The RKT sustainability journey began early in 2011 with ISO 14001 certification for environmental management. Soon afterward, we became one of the first companies in Germany to receive ISO 50001 certification for energy management. . Since then, we’ve continually identified opportunities to enhance sustainability across our operations. Continued sustainability progress is a defined responsibility led by our quality department, overseen by our Head of Integrated Management Systems. See more our sustainability projects at a glance here.
CCF Reporting of RKT’s CO2 Carbon Footprint
Since 2019, RKT has voluntarily prepared an annual Corporate CO2 Carbon Footprint (CCF) report detailing the company’s greenhouse gas emissions for which a business is responsible. In recent years, RKT has succeeded in reducing its CO2 carbon footprint by 45%, primarily due to the change to green electricity in 2020. Many companies report only Scope 1 (direct emissions from energy generation) and Scope 2 (indirect emissions from purchased energy), which combined only account for 25% of the carbon footprint. The remaining 75% reported in Scope 3, which includes indirect emissions across the value chain, is more challenging for companies to control. RKT, though, also reports Scope 3 emissions and is actively exploring strategies to reduce them. Current initiatives include transitioning from air freight to sea freight to mitigate emissions in the transportation sector.
If you would like to learn more about our sustainability goals and projects, please contact our Sustainability Office.
ISCC PLUS certification attests to sustainable circular economy concept
Our ISCC PLUS certification for circular economy and bioeconomy throughout the entire supply chain represents another building block in our sustainability strategy. It underlines how we are supporting the move to gradually replace fossil raw materials with recyclable, ecologically sustainable, raw materials – in our case, plastics.
We achieve this through mass balancing, which involves purchasing credits from the sustainable raw material portfolio of ISCC PLUS-certified manufacturers. We can then use the value of these credits to manufacture ISCC PLUS-compliant components for customers who require sustainable products.
A product can only receive the ISCC PLUS label if all parties in the supply chain, from granulate manufacturer to injection molding company, are also ISCC PLUS-certified. To that end, we have adapted processes in procurement, incoming and outgoing goods, production, and employee training so that they are aligned with our mass balancing efforts.
Together with our customers, we want to be pioneers in increasingly embedding the circular concept in production processes. Why not join us? Every client company that opts to manufacture using sustainable plastics increases the proportion of recyclable raw materials that we use.
