Sonett’s Commitment to Climate Issues  

Feeling responsible for water and the entire nature is no strategy of Sonett but the company’s profound conviction which was also the incentive for the enterprise to be founded. This is the reason for our main concern centring on avoiding and reducing global warming gases which are detrimental to the climate. Being well aware of this responsibility, Sonett started taking measures as early as 2011 to reduce our own CO2e emission. Unfortunately, a manufacturer of goods is never in a position to completely prevent CO2 emissions. We do, however, compensate the emission which continues despite our reduction measures, by the purchase of CO2 certificates. To this purpose we do the carbon footprinting of our enterprise on the basis of the internationally accepted Greenhouse Gas Protocol Standards. Since 2021 we have been supported in this endeavour by ClimatePartner.

 

Taken into account our activities at Deggenhausen, the company’s headquarters, a Corporate Carbon Footprint is drawn up.  

 

Our CCF covers the emissions caused by direct activities of the company (scope 1) and indirect emission resulting from purchased energy or heat (scope 2) whose inclusion is mandatory according to the GHG Protocol. 

 

The upstream and downstream processes (scope 3) may, as an option, be included in the Corporate Carbon Footprinting, according to the GHG Protocol. Common practice is to take into account the following scope3 processes in the CCF: The employees’ commuting, business trips, stationery, as well as advertising and information brochures. This is exactly how we have proceeded. In addition, we take into account on a voluntary basis, and have done so from the very beginning, our product packaging (primary and secondary packaging). This is the area which represents by large the biggest part of our CCF.

 


New Sonett Building 

 

 

Not included in the footprinting is the largest part of the so-called upstream and downstream processes, e. g. our raw materials, all transport to our premises and the transport to trade and consumers, as well as the disposal of our packaging. Our carbon footprint is, therefore, no PCF (Product Carbon Footprint) but a Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF). The PCF covers the entire value chain of a product. It requires that full responsibility be assumed for the respective climate-related impact across all stages of the value chain. This is done by having each stage footprinted and by reducing its CO2e emission as much as possible. After that, the remaining emissions are being neutralized by supporting climate protection projects.

 

Our company’s carbon footprinting is carried out on the basis of the internationally accepted Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) Standards. (https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard). It is not only CO2 which is taken into account, but all relevant climate gases defined in the Kyoto Protocol, converted in CO2 equivalents. (https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/klima-energie/klimaschutz-energiepolitik-in-deutschland/treibhausgas-emissionen/die-treibhausgase). CO2 equivalents (CO2e) are a unit of measurement for standardizing the impact that the different greenhouse gases, such as methane-CH4, nitrous oxide N2O, PFCs have on climate.  

 

The footprinting of the CO2e emissions is realized on the basis of the GHG Protocol, the certifying is based on footprinting, reduction and compensation. From 2011 to 2020 we were being footprinted and certified by Stop Climate Change. Since 2021 ClimatePartner has been our new certifier.

 

Climate Partnership with Baden-Wuerttemberg

 

 

 

Climate Partnership with Baden-Wuerttemberg

In November 2021 we entered into a climate partnership with the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, having agreed to keep up our present endeavours to protect the climate, for the time being for 10 years, and to continue working on further reducing emissions. 

 

 

from left to right: Michael Münter (Head of Department of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Ministry for Environment),
Dr. Angela Michel, Andreas Roth (both Sonett), photo:  Martin Stollberg

Concerning the topic climate protection it is our main concern to prevent emissions and to compensate the remaining emissions. For this reason, we are consistently working on optimizing our processes and products as far as sustainability and climate protection are concerned. Since 2011 we have implemented an annually up-dated concept for establishing reduction measures whose effect is evaluated in retrospect. 

 

Examples of concrete CO2e reductions:

  • Thanks to using 100 % green electricity (Greenpeace Energy and a neighbouring hydroelectric power station) we prevented the emission of 337,9 tons of CO2 equivalents in 2021 (calculated by ClimatePartner) compared to the standard electricity power mix in Germany. 
  • Thanks to Cycle4green’s recycling the siliconized label liner in Austria, we were able to reduce the emission by 13.9 tons of CO2 equivalents (Download: Certificate of Cycle4green) (Download: Certificate Cycle4green)
  • Using a wood pellet-fired boiler for heating we consume merely 19,7 g CO2e/kWh. In comparison, natural gas emits 241 g CO2e/kWh and fuel oil even 313 g CO2e/kWh (see graphic). 


  • Having reduced the weight of our 1 litre bottle by 2 g since Jan. 2020, resulted in the following savings: plastics reduction 2021: 5.16 t; CO2e reduction 2021: 15.5 t.
  • Our plastics packaging representing the main part of our footprinted emissions, it is important to us to find a lever for reducing CO2e as well as the plastics resource in that area.  In 2021 customers returned 12.88 t of plastics to us, which was either 100% refilled or recycled. 

 

Our activities over the last few years

  • Highly-efficient heating with wood pellets, in cooperation with the near-by Camphill Workshops Lehenhof.
  • Our new warehouse is tempered with geothermal heat. 
  • 100 % green energy from the neighbouring hydroelectric power station and from Greenpeace Energy.
  • Retrofitting the illuminants with LED.  
  • Ecologically compatible, sustainable and energy-efficient buildings (all the values exceed the legal requirements).  All new buildings are KfW 55 (state-owned bank for development KfW) (the transmission heat losses are 45 % lower than the legal requirements) thanks to an airtight building shell and a high degree of heat recovery in technical building ventilation.  
  • Soap production needing no addition of heat. 
  • Reusing the label liner by returning it to Cycle4green.
  • Taking back empty Sonett containers from health food shops. Despite just having begun, we have already delivered 183 Sonett recycling boxes to German wholesalers of organic products who make it possible for customers to return Sonett containers at the point of sale.  The bottles returned (without sealing caps) are 100 % recycled and up to 50 % of them mixed in when producing our new bottles. The number of Sonett bottles with Sonett’s own recycling percentage varies – depending on the small empty packaging units returned. 
  • We are vigorously working on further increasing the number of recycling boxes in the health food shops. 
  • Cardboard boxes and paper made from 95 % of waste paper.  
  • All bottles and canisters as well as the major part of the labels made from PE/PP (= 100 % recyclable), according to type. 
  • Continuous optimizing of the packaging in order to save resources, fuel oil and emissions.  
  • Waste reduction by using refill bottles and canisters for replenishing. 
  • Very economical products, thus saving packaging and transport. 
  • Quick, 100 % biodegradability of our products    https://www.sonett.eu/qualitaet/informationen/abbau-von-tensiden/ 
  • All oils for saponification as well as all the essential oils originate 100 % from organic cultivation and collection from wild-growing plants respectively.
  • Long-term relationship with suppliers (guarantees transparency and confidence). 
  • Short supply chains, wherever possible: The major part of our bottles is produced not too far from our premises (less than 20 kms). We purchase our cardboard boxes from our regional manufacturers. A major part of our raw materials and packaging originates from Germany and Europe.    
  • We give preference to suppliers that are certified as being CO2e neutral. 
  • The suppliers are also selected according to sustainability criteria. 
  • Employees’ mobility: cycling to work, e-service station (100% green energy) for cars and bicycles. 
  • Flights reduced to a minimum (no flights within Germany). 
  • Supporting organic agriculture, ecological seed breeding and the Funds for Soil Fertility of the “Biostiftung Schweiz” (Bio-Foundation Switzerland). 

Canisters taken back 

 

The following table shows that compared to our sales development, the CO2e emissions tend to be lower in the years 2016 – 2020. The remaining CO2e emissions having increased in 2018 compared to those of 2017 is owned to the fact that we built our new warehouse and a new office floor in 2016 and 2017. The substantial decrease in 2020 is due to the enormous increase in turnover, with the number of buildings and machinery having remained the same. 

Furthermore, one has to take into account that the CO2e reductions realized naturally continue diminishing the more measures were implemented in the past. 

The compensation of the emission takes place by purchasing CO2e emission certificates. The emission certificates come from climate protection projects that are certified by the Gold Standard in whose development the WWF cooperated actively. When selecting climate protection projects, we also pay attention to the improvement of the social conditions of people involved in the project. Here listed are the projects we support: 

 

 

For the time being we are supporting the following two projects: