Our Bluezero® technology, which harnesses water as a refrigerant, has made us a true clean-tech pioneer in the refrigeration industry. Our refrigeration technology is serving to drive a shift in the refrigeration industry away from harmful F-gases towards natural alternatives; in doing so, we are helping our customers reduce their carbon footprints and contributing significantly towards meeting national and international climate goals. Besides this, our eChiller product range has also been recognised with the European Commission’s European Business Award for the Environment 2018/2019.
As a company, we have been climate-neutral since 2020 and attach great importance to sustainability in all business processes and interactions with our employees, customers, partners and suppliers. Our corporate aspiration is to approach resource neutrality and make a real contribution to sustainable development.
As a clean-tech company, sustainable action and thinking are programmed in our DNA. We are convinced that assuming social, environmental and economic responsibility contribute fundamentally to our economic success.
Georg Dietrich, CEO
We strive for a holistic view and implementation of the topic of sustainability in our company and thus try to approach resource neutrality step by step. Find out more below about how we live sustainability at Efficient Energy. We promise that we will stick to it!
While our refrigeration technology helps our customers reduce their carbon footprint, it is equally important for us to take responsibility for our own actions and for our planet. Efficient Energy GmbH therefore takes pride in qualifying as one of the refrigeration industry’s first climate-neutral companies, which it became in 2020 after having calculated its corporate emissions, offset these and taken measures to reduce them.
In 2020, Efficient Energy CEO, Georg Dietrich, set a good example by becoming a Leader for Climate Action and offsetting his own, personal carbon footprint. The next logical step was to commit Efficient Energy to this “Green Pledge” as well.
In cooperation with the Leaders for Climate Action community (link: lfca.earth), we calculated the CO2 emissions resulting from our business activities. Our supply chain not yet included, we listed and evaluated all of our direct sources of emissions – from electricity consumption, water and office supplies to the vehicle fleet and business travel. We then worked with Climatepartner (link: www.climatepartner.com) on selecting an appropriate project to offset our carbon footprint. Offsetting emissions alone, however, is, of course, only part of the story and we continue to implement measures to cut our emissions further. Examples of the measures implemented thus far are a switch to green electricity, as well as our “Trains over Planes” business travel policy which stipulates no domestic air travel.
Why not accompany us on our journey towards resource neutrality? Discover more about the reduction measures we have implemented to date, the climate protection project we support and its contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Sustainability is not just a buzzword for us, but is lived each day in all of Efficient Energy’s business processes.
We refurbished our production facilities and expanded the laboratory infrastructure to enable a more efficient and prudent use of resources. We also converted the air conditioning of the laboratory to our own eChiller refrigeration technology using water as a refrigerant.
When sourcing materials, we are mindful of material and raw-material efficiency and try to use regional suppliers wherever feasible to strengthen the region. Likewise, we always first question the need for business trips and, only when these are absolutely unavoidable, choose the most environmentally friendly means of transport possible when booking.
Germany is respected worldwide for manufacturing high-quality, future-oriented equipment and products and enjoys an excellent reputation for the outstanding talent of its engineers and skilled workers. Efficient Energy GmbH develops and manufactures exclusively in Germany, thereby strengthening the country’s leading international competitiveness with its expertise and technology.
Efficient Energy has received the Natural Refrigerants Label from ATMOsphere, a global market accelerator of clean cooling and heating solutions.
The label is designed to help qualified manufacturers to market products to new customers and regions in the natural refrigerants marketplace. In addition, the label is meant to help end users to identify best-in-class suppliers.
“We are happy to be recognised by ATMOsphere as a Best-in-class natural refrigerant company. This label means a lot for us, because it underlines that natural refrigerants need to be more visible in the refrigeration industry labelling them as existing and proven energy efficient and powerful refrigerants to help other industries on their path to climate-neutral”, said Georg Dietrich, CEO from Efficient Energy.
To qualify for an ATMOsphere label, manufacturers have to demonstrate excellence across three pillars:
For the past 20 years, market accelerator ATMOsphere (formerly shecco) has been active in helping bring climate-friendly technologies faster to market. ATMOsphere supports over 100 partners worldwide in the HVAC&R sector, where the focus is on sustainable refrigeration, heating & cooling technologies using natural refrigerants.
As a pioneer of clean cooling, our innovative refrigeration technology stands for a business model that is green through and through. Sustainability is therefore not only our profound conviction, but also our core business. This is strategically important for us because, with every company under a strict legal obligation to significantly reduce its carbon footprint over the coming years, the potential offered by refrigeration is, unfortunately, often overlooked when drafting measures.
In this respect, it was a logical consequence for us to set a decisive example in terms of sustainability and climate protection in the refrigeration industry. From 2022, we will produce the eChiller product series as climate-neutral refrigeration machines and, as such, become the refrigeration industry’s only supplier worldwide to offer climate-neutral chillers. By combining the use of water as a climate-neutral refrigerant and the use of green electricity, Efficient Energy can offer its customers comprehensive, climate-neutral cooling that allows the operator to reduce its carbon footprint in this area to zero.
‘Not only are we pioneers of sustainable refrigeration technology and stand for water as a refrigerant, but holistic climate protection and sustainable business belong to our unambiguous corporate values. With Efficient Energy itself having been climate neutral since 2020, it’s the next logical step of our Green Pledge that our products should also be climate neutral. I hope as many companies as possible will be as resolute as us in implementing their sustainability goals, and will have the courage to take the next steps towards a climate-neutral industry,’ comments Efficient Energy CEO, Georg Dietrich.
The refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment used by the global refrigeration industry accounts for around 8 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. But these are only the direct and indirect emissions caused by the fluorinated refrigerants and energy-intensive processes used by conventional technologies: If the emissions of a chiller life cycle analysis are used as the basis, and the entire net impact on the environment – from raw material extraction to disposal – is calculated, the bottom line is even more alarming. HVAC industry pioneer, Efficient Energy, is the only supplier of chillers to have gone this extra mile to date and is setting new standards in doing so.
Together with climate protection expert ClimatePartner, the carbon footprint of the entire eChiller product family was calculated and documented, from the raw material and logistics data through to packaging and disposal. The CO2 equivalent emissions of these products were then offset by a recognised climate protection project that is certified in accordance with international standards and, additionally to climate protection, also contributes to many of the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). Find out more information about the certified climate protection project.
Besides the environmental and economic factors, other aspects – such as the social component and a company’s responsibility towards its employees, customers, partners, suppliers, investors and society as a whole – also play a central role.
Our employees are our most valuable asset and their well-being and health are our top priority. We cultivate respectful relations between equals and live a modern organisational structure characterised by flat hierarchies, agile project set-ups, transparency and a high degree of personal responsibility.
Work-life balance is an absolute must for us, and flexible working hours and the option to work from home let us achieve an optimal balance between leisure/family and work. Also important for us is to promote diversity at our company and ensure equal opportunities regardless of age, gender, origin and social background.
In times of crisis, such as the current Corona pandemic, the health and safety of our employees is our top concern. We take every conceivable measure to protect them – from devising hygiene concepts and providing them with FFP2 masks to switching entirely to home-working (where the nature of the job permits).
We also place great emphasis on good and trusting relations with our customers, suppliers and business partners. To ensure outstanding service and product safety is of course another important aspect of sustainability when thinking of our customers and business partners.
To support the refrigeration technology experts of tomorrow, refrigeration schools can gain insight into our Bluezero® technology in the form of lectures and production tours. We also allow international delegations of refrigeration technology experts to visit our premises in cooperation with the German Federal environmental foundation Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU), the aim being to transfer knowledge in the use of water as a refrigerant to other countries as well.
Just as important is our duty to live up to our investors’ expectations and to spend the funds they commit wisely.
But corporate social responsibility also means contributing to society as a whole and, in this area, we pursue a highly informative and educational role. While air travel is widely condemned as a source of emissions, hardly anyone is aware of the refrigeration industry’s much larger contribution to climate change. For this reason, we run a Cool Insights blog in which we provide easy-to-understand and well-prepared content and background information on the refrigeration industry.
Georg Dietrich has been nominated by the trade journal Markt&Technik in the category "Sustainability" for the election as "Manager of the Year 2022".
eChiller – The World’s Most Sustainable Refrigeration Systems: Efficient Energy Becomes the First Manufacturer to Produce Climate-Neutral Chillers
Efficient Energy GmbH helps you master the challenges of refrigeration technology. With our eChiller model series, companies benefit in the long term and sustainably from an environmentally friendly solution, which impresses with its high cost efficiency.
