Ortlieb announce product carbon footprint for all goods

In keeping with the guiding principle of “avoiding rather than compensating for emissions” and in combination with the accompanying actions, Ortlieb has now determined and published what is known as the ‘product carbon footprint’ for all of its almost 400 products.

A product’s footprint indicates the emissions that are generated from sourcing of the raw materials through to production of the actual bike pannier, backpack or travel bag.

The announcement highlights that, on the website customers can now see how many kilometres they need to cover by bike, rather than car, in order to compensate for the effects of a particular bag.

• All CO₂e values (CO₂ equivalent) of every product are integrated within the company’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
• This enables the current footprint to be recalculated in real time so that progress in the reduction of emissions for the product can be displayed on the website.

The producer of waterproof outdoor equipment, whose production is based in the north Bavarian town of Heilsbronn, already sources more than 70% of its materials in Germany. Many years of intensive work have already gone into the determination of all emissions that each individual product causes.

CEO Martin Esslinger explains: “Ortlieb stands for long-lasting, repairable products made in Germany – yet in spite of all this, we want to make an even greater contribution to reducing climate change. To do this, it is essential to determine where we generate which specific CO₂e emissions so that we are also able to reduce them still further. Thanks to our local supply chains, we are able to quantify most of the actual values for our raw material parts. Furthermore, this also enables us to show to our customers the impact associated with a specific product from us.”

The CEO continues: “Our current CSR Manager Max Griesser evaluated one of our products as part of his Master’s thesis. We then continued this project with him and extended it to cover all of our items. Thanks to the production at our site and the high manufacturing depth we have been able to determine the real values rather than just use rough figures taken from a database.”

The fact that implementation has now been completed, the product carbon footprint is being communicated transparently for every item and it is available on the website means that Ortlieb Sportartikel GmbH has been able to successfully achieve one sub-target of its CSR strategy. The renowned myclimate organization conducted external verification of the calculation methodology for the emission factors that were used.

Martin Esslinger gives an indication of developments to come: “We want to report authentically and honestly on our efforts in sustainability because climate protection can only succeed if the underlying intentions are serious, and the measures are implemented transparently.”

“Additional major points now include publishing the ecological assessment for all products and increasing the proportion of electricity that we generate ourselves from the current level of two-thirds to 100% on our balance sheet. Both of these targets are to be finalized in the year 2025. By the end of the decade the carbon footprint should then be zero and we aim to produce more regenerative energy than we need.”