What does climate neutrality mean at HOFA-Akustik?
Since January 2021, HOFA is a certified climate neutral company, including all products and services. Only a few companies, now including HOFA, have taken this elaborate step.
Working environmentally responsible has always been an important part of our corporate culture – so we decided to have our climate footprint compiled annually. This allows us to optimise our CO2 emissions in a quantifiable way and to compensate for unavoidable emissions. Compensating means that all CO2 emissions generated by HOFA are offset by supporting a climate-positive project certified to the highest standard. At HOFA-Akustik, for example, we compensate for the entire production and delivery of HOFA acoustic modules, every job including the commutes of our employees, the complete infrastructure with office and warehouse, and much more.
Of course, avoiding CO2 is much more sensible than offsetting – which is why it always comes first. You can learn more about how we avoid CO2 in the following sections:
Climate-friendly simply sounds better
Sustainability is becoming increasingly more important for us in the development of HOFA acoustic modules. New materials must not only be exceptionally effective from an acoustic point of view, but also uncompromisingly sustainable if they are to be used in our acoustic modules. The HOFA PureAkust acoustic sails, for example, are made of 70% recycled fibres and are completely recyclable. For the HOFA Basstrap, we offer a filling made of sustainable sheep’s wool besides the recyclable mineral wool. And of course, as a climate-neutral natural resource, wood is an important component of many HOFA acoustic modules.
But we want to do even more: We are currently testing many renewable resources for their acoustic effectiveness and use them to develop new materials for the production of acoustic modules. Because our ambition is to offer not only the best acoustic modules, but also uncompromisingly sustainable ones.
Short transport routes and recycling of packaging
We have always relied on our local partners in the production of HOFA acoustic modules! And that is for a reason: a study by Climate Watch found that the transport of goods is the cause of approximately 25% of the world’s CO2 emissions. All HOFA acoustic modules are produced in Germany – most of them at “Lebenshilfe Bruchsal-Bretten”, just a few kilometres away from our offices. This way, we support local workshops for people with disabilities, which have been working with us for over 15 years and supply us reliably with high-quality acoustic modules. All HOFA products are then packed and shipped from our own warehouse.
Speaking of packaging: Of course, we also participate in the German dual recycling system for packaging waste. For example, every piece of packaging that we use is licensed with the “Green Dot” (Grüner Punkt).
We work environmentally friendly
Each of HOFA’s approximately 80 employees contributes to a sustainable corporate culture. Environmental protection and the reduction of CO2 emissions are included in all decisions – for example, when we talk about new technology, product innovations, an improvement in our operating processes or future developments. But also when we decide to only offer vegetarian food in our company cafeteria, because the production of meat is much more CO2-intensive than the production of regional vegetarian food.
Technology plays a major role at HOFA – after all, in addition to being a provider of acoustic services and modules, we are also an online academy, a music studio, software developer, and media service provider. We therefore use a lot of studio and office hardware, server technology and video equipment. In this context we pay attention to long-lasting and resource-efficient technology, an environmentally conscious way of working, local partners and suppliers. Our highly digitalized and paperless office not only saves us time, but also avoids unnecessary CO2 emissions. Emails replace printed letters, and our digital archive avoids tons of files, folders and paper.
Solar power, combined heat and power generation
The generation of electricity and heat causes a lot of CO2. That’s why we only obtain green electricity. Our photovoltaic system, which has been operating since 2007, usually generates more electricity than we consume ourselves. In order to be able to completely make up for our consumption of electricity with self-generated electricity in the future, a further solar plant is being planned.
The HOFA facilities are heated with efficient and environmentally friendly combined heat and power in our own micro cogeneration plant. It generates electricity and uses the waste heat from the generator for our efficient heating system. This reduces CO2 emissions by half compared to a separate electricity and heat generation.
We are also switching our company fleet to only electric vehicles. With our e-charging stations, which we supply with green electricity, we can not only charge our company cars emission-free, but we also offer our employees charging options for their own private vehicles.
We want to do our part to leave a healthy planet for future generations so that they can also do what they love – music, for example … 😊
Do you have any further ideas how we can save unnecessary CO2 emissions, or would you like to talk about our sustainability concept? We look forward to hearing from you.
