WEFRA LIFE is pleased about its successful sustainability strategy

In the healthcare market, the efforts that are made usually focus on people’s health. However, when it comes to healthcare agency WEFRA LIFE’s declared goals, these efforts also include effective ones for keeping its employees, its sites and even the planet healthy. That is why the family company from central Germany’s Neu-Isenburg has been committed to sustainability for many years and how it has already achieved major successes in the reduction of its carbon emissions. In its sustainability strategy, combined with a sustainability report, the communications experts can now reflect on a number of important achievements in this field.

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To WEFRA LIFE, the agency’s responsibility to society and the environment is just as important as its commercial success, which is why the principle of sustainability is embedded firmly in its business philosophy. Even though the company is not affected by the EU Taxonomy regulations and is not under any obligation relating to them, the team at the family-run communications agency has developed voluntary, targeted measures for many years now. The latest report is based on five pillars: environment; labour and human rights; ethics; corporate governance; and sustainable procurement.

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Using Greenhouse Gas Protocol evaluations and analyses as a basis, the size of the company’s own carbon footprint and the components making it up are investigated on an ongoing basis and put on record in a sustainability report. ‘We have developed a detailed calculation basis,’ explains WEFRA LIFE COO Niklas Kurz, ‘It enables us to break down emissions to a detailed level, for example, for a single online ad.’ There are three ‘scopes’ that have been identified in this context: Scope 1 refers to the company’s direct emissions, Scope 2 the indirect emissions of energy suppliers and Scope 3 the indirect emissions of the upstream and downstream supply chains. When formulating targets, WEFRA LIFE aligns itself with the specifications of the Paris Agreement and those of corporate organisation Science Based Targets initiative (STBi) as well as recommended CSR practices in cooperation with EcoVadis. These efforts have been recognised and honoured with a bronze medal from EcoVadis for the third time in a row, putting WEFRA LIFE in the top 16 highest-rated companies.

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Direct emissions: targets exceeded

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The implementation shows that reductions of CO2 consumption can be made particularly effectively for direct emissions caused by factors such as heating or company vehicles. In this context, switching to solar panels and green power as well as using hybrid and electric cars has already had a great effect. ‘For Scope 1, which involves reducing direct carbon emissions, we already achieved the SBTi target back in 2023 and were able to reduce our emissions even further last year,’ explains Maximilian Glotzbach, Senior Financial Controller at WEFRA LIFE, adding that Scope 3 emissions were successfully reduced by 15% between 2022 and 2024.

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Bringing down the upstream and downstream emissions included in Scope 3, however, is a bigger challenge because it can usually only be done in close cooperation with third parties. Material procurement in particular has been the significant emissions factor so far, so there is a priority on dialogue with suppliers to raise their awareness of possibilities for reducing emissions. In the area of media, for instance, advertisement printing as well as media planning can now be made more sustainable. ‘We plan to gradually align our media offerings with this aspect, too,’ COO Kurz explains.

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For WEFRA LIFE, two particularly important cooperation partners on the subject of sustainability are Klim and Greenkeeper – and have been for a number of years – who focus on local projects in Germany. Klim supports renewable and biodiverse agriculture nationally through the sale of carbon credits. Cooperating directly with farmers, Klim works towards the development of a fully renewable food system.

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Greenkeeper neutralises carbon emissions by supporting and repopulating sustainably managed forests. With the additional income gained, forest owners are given the possibility of converting to climate-friendly, continuous cover forestry.

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Making the future socially just and sustainable

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WEFRA LIFE has set out a description of the measures it has achieved so far and the targets it is pursuing and made them available in a sustainability strategy and a sustainability report. Clients can request this report for their perusal at any time. It includes not only targets for the purpose of reducing carbon emissions, but also ones spanning the bandwidth of ESG (environmental, social and governance) topics. With them, for example, WEFRA LIFE commits to assuming social responsibility, safeguarding anti-corruption measures and upholding human rights and other important ethical standards.

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‘We are proud of what we have achieved as a company for sustainability in recent years and documented in our sustainability report,’ says Niklas Kurz, ‘It is an ambition that we are taking with us as we move ahead. We wish to be the driving force not only in the healthcare market, but also in the development of strategies which preserve the health of our society and planet.’