Sustainability in the supply chain
May 03, 2024
With the explicit aim of making its business activities sustainable, halstrup-walcher GmbH from Kirchzarten in southern Germany has been pursuing its annual environmental targets with an environmental team and implementing specific optimisation measures since 2008. In order to act as sustainably as possible in its own supply chain, halstrup-walcher regularly evaluates its suppliers according to certain criteria. These include evaluation criteria from the areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR), quality and delivery reliability as well as an assessment of general cooperation.
In the most recent supplier evaluation, a total of 211 suppliers were assessed, 189 of which had already been assessed in the previous year. While the overall rating of three suppliers declined compared to the previous year, 154 suppliers were able to maintain their rating and 32 suppliers improved their overall rating.
The progress made in the area of CSR is particularly pleasing. While in 2022 only a total of 80 companies achieved a score of at least 6 on the 10-point CSR rating scale, this figure rose to 119 companies in 2023. 67 suppliers even achieved a score of 8 or higher. When analysing CSR performance, the certification of an environmental management system, existing environmental labels and the EcoVadis sustainability rating were taken into account.
"As a company with a very high level of vertical integration, we attach particular importance to ensuring that our suppliers also meet our high quality and sustainability standards. We are therefore all the more pleased to see that our suppliers are improving every year. In this way, we not only meet our sustainability targets, but also manage to offer our customers sustainable and high-quality solutions at the same time",
says Christian Sura, who manages the business of halstrup-walcher GmbH together with Jürgen Walcher.
In the coming years, halstrup-walcher will continue to work closely with its suppliers on sustainability aspects.
In January 2024, a staff unit for sustainability was set up at halstrup-walcher to coordinate the wide range of activities. According to the internationally recognised and comprehensive EcoVadis sustainability rating, in which halstrup-walcher participates voluntarily, the drive and measurement technology specialist is currently among the top 35% of all companies assessed.