corsus publishes sustainability reports: carbon footprint and DNK statement
The first part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th report, published in August 2021, once again underscores how urgently we need to act today to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Companies, municipalities and citizens alike are called upon to help mitigate the consequences of global warming. Climate change has also arrived in Germany: The condition of forests is visibly deteriorating, and soils have dried out considerably in recent years. In addition, the storms we are experiencing are getting stronger and stronger, and flood disasters such as those that recently occurred in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia are becoming more frequent. Studies show that we are currently moving toward global warming of 3 °C by the end of the century – with dramatic consequences for future generations. We are therefore all called upon to act and drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
corsus also takes its responsibility and has for the second time prepared its carbon footprint according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol methodology standard. In 2020, corsus produced 3,193 kg of greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon footprint shows that the greenhouse gas emissions caused by corsus’ business activities are not very high in absolute terms. They correspond to around one third of the emissions of an average German household. And yet: we too must take further steps to reduce our emissions. That’s why corsus has set itself the following targets:
- Ten percent reduction in emissions caused by electricity and gas consumption per full-time equivalent by 2025 (base: 2018).
- 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions caused by business travel per full-time equivalent by 2025 (baseline: 2018)
- Offset remaining emissions through appropriate compensation.
Via the carbon footprint, corsus controls which climate protection measures are to be taken in the future in order to minimize corsus’ negative impact on the climate.
In order to also take a look at the company as a whole, corsus has prepared and submitted a DNK statement on twenty sustainability criteria and supplementary non-financial performance indicators. The German Sustainability Code (Deutscher Nachhaltigkeitskodex, DNK) is a cross-industry transparency standard for reporting corporate sustainability performance. The circle of users includes large and small, public and private companies with and without sustainability reporting, companies subject to reporting requirements, and all those organizations that wish to inform their stakeholders about their sustainability performance. Published reports can be compared with each other on the generally accessible DNK database. To date, 600 companies have submitted a DNK declaration.
In the course of preparing the DNK declaration, corsus has looked at its own sustainability strategy and internal process management, prioritized qualitative and quantitative targets, and analyzed their impact on the environment and society. The basis for corsus’ sustainability strategy are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030.
On 29.09.2021 the project office German Sustainability Code released the declaration of corsus and congratulated on the well done first declaration.