Let's Talk Plainly: Communication on Progress Published

As Schwarz Group, we have now published our first Communication on Progress with the title "Talking plainly. Act sustainably. Making progress.". The name says it all: the report shows our new sustainability strategy in detail for the first time and provides insight into the milestones we achieved last year.

A particular highlight was the launch of our group-wide climate strategy. A large cross-divisional project team worked flat out to set ambitious climate targets for our Group. The Paris Climate Agreement had clearly set the direction for us: 1.5 degrees. We are proud to be able to make a measurable contribution to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees with our climate targets.

If we were to choose an internal word of the year, "recyclate" would certainly be the contender for the throne. After all, a lot of our work revolves around recycled plastic:

• Last year, for example, we produced household goods such as organizers, laundry baskets, transport boxes, trash and cleaning buckets from recyclate and sold them in our Kaufland and Lidl stores. What is special about this is that almost all steps in the value chain - from collection, sorting, processing and production through to sale - are represented by our own corporate group. This enables an incredible knowledge transfer.
• Since circular economy is highly relevant to us, we have also decided to raise our recycling target: By 2025, we will use an average of 25 percent recyclate the private label packaging of our retail divisions Lidl and Kaufland. 
• We turn old bottles into new ones. In Germany, all disposable PET-bottles produced by Schwarz Produktion are made from 100 percent recycled PET. We pay attention to every detail: the bottles are not only made from recycled material, but at the same time remain very light and are so well built that they fit firmly in the hand. The lid and label are currently not made of recycled material, but we are doing our best to find a solution for this as well.

Surprised by the great milestones we've been able to achieve so far? Our progress report has a lot more to tell. Have fun exploring!