Promoting everything from the circular economy to biodiversity, transport power and social responsibility
Sustainability and long-term thinking are core values of Julius Blum GmbH, a world market leader in furniture fittings. The Austrian family-owned company, which was first granted ISO 14001 environmental accreditation in 1997, has implemented countless initiatives to promote sustainability within its own business and beyond under the tagline ‘moving ideas for sustainability’.
United Nations 17 Conventions – sustainable development goals
The overarching ethos that Blum endeavours to live and work by has been long established, but in today’s world can be encapsulated in the UN17 SDGs. These range from no poverty and zero hunger, through to climate action, and good health and well-being. In the UK, Blum partners with some local non-profit organisations and charities, donating time, money and physical things such as furniture from exhibitions, merchandising and left-over food. This forms the basis of all the brand’s physical goals and endeavours in the business as well, all of which are led by Blum in Austria.
Using waste heat and promoting biodiversity
One area highlighted is Blum’s efforts to develop a sustainable energy supply: 95% of the company’s ventilation systems are now equipped with heat recovery technology, meaning that in spring and autumn, the Blum plants in Austria are heated entirely using the waste heat from its production processes.
The company also uses district heating, groundwater cooling and solar systems installed at its premises. The vast majority of its buildings are compact, multi-storey structures in order to minimise land use, and in the last 40 years, Blum has optimised its space utilisation by 35%. That means that for a 14,000 m2 plot, the business now boasts 50,000 m2 of usable space, saving the equivalent of five football pitches’ worth of land, which can instead be preserved as near-natural areas.
Transport
Fittings manufacturer Blum has developed an environmentally-friendly round-trip concept for container transport between Blum Austria and Blum USA. Thanks to its partnership with JCL Logistics and international shipping company ICL, containers have been successfully shipped to the USA by rail and water.
Blum’s Transport Logistics department teamed up with Independent Container Line (ICL) and JCL Logistics and set themselves an ambitious goal: To not use roads at all from Dornbirn to Charlotte. And they did it by developing an environmentally-friendly round-trip concept. “The key to success was to come up with an intermodal solution using water and rail transport,” explains Ingmar Blum, Head of the Transport Logistics team at Blum. Trucks were to be used only sparingly or as a backup. In fact, road transport is only used for some of the containers for the last few kilometres from the train station in Charlotte to Blum USA in Stanley.
The intermodal round-trip concept works as follows: Every week several containers embark from Blum’s logistics centre in Dornbirn, Vorarlberg to Blum USA. The containers with goods destined for the US subsidiary are loaded directly onto the train in the sidings of the logistics centre. They are transported by rail to the Wolfurt terminal and from there to Neuss, Germany. No time is lost due to traffic congestion. As well as speed, the clear advantage of this mode of transport is its sustainability: According to data from the Environment Agency Austria, the average truck produces 85.7 g of CO2 per tonne-kilometre. In contrast, transporting goods by rail produces just 2.8 g of CO2 per tonne-kilometre (as of July 2023*). On top of this, it also reduces traffic on the roads.
Once at Neuss, the containers switch to a different mode of transport. A barge chartered by international shipping company ICL takes the goods to the port in Antwerp via inland waterways. “Marine and waterway services have made major steps in terms of sustainability in recent years. Freight movement by barge is a highly-efficient mode of transport, so why not benefit from it ourselves? Transport by barge is head and shoulders above road transport, especially when it comes to noise, tyre wear and particulates,” says Ingmar Blum.
ICL provide targeted barge services in order to control the supply chain themselves and ensure excellent throughput times. This means that there is a timely connection to deep sea shipping services in Antwerp, and all ports and transfers can be monitored to ensure smooth round-trip transportation. In turn, this means reliable deliveries to customers. The containers are shipped along the Rhine to Antwerp, where they are loaded onto an ocean-going vessel to begin their journey across the Atlantic.
Once they arrive at the port in Wilmington, some of the containers continue their journey by rail again. The train takes them to Charlotte, and it is only at this point – for the very last few kilometres of their journey – that they are loaded onto trucks to reach Blum USA in Stanley, which is around half an hour away. “It would be unrealistic to think that such a long and complex container journey could be done without any trucks at all. But we have come as close as currently possible to a solution without road transport,” reports Ingmar Blum, adding: “Nonetheless, we’re looking ahead and planning to reduce the number of truck trips even further and transport all containers from Wilmington to Charlotte by rail, rather than only some. In the long run, we want to apply this or similar concepts to as many routes as possible. We also hope that many will follow our example.”
In practice, the mode of transport depends on several different factors such as the rail infrastructure, the destination, the freight and customer requirements.
The containers’ journey does not end in Stanley, USA, however. Return transport is provided through collaboration with ICL. To avoid empty runs, goods are also transported on the return journey. Thanks to its customer base, ICL can ensure a load factor of 95 percent in both directions. The strategy of establishing closed-loop routes not only enhances efficiency but also ensures continuous availability.
“With ICL and JCL, we have two experienced partners, who fully support us in our efforts to use more sustainable transport and come up with innovative ideas for new solutions,” says Ingmar Blum in praise of this partnership of equals and adds “In the long run, we want to keep our CO2 emissions as low as possible and we are working day in day out to reach this goal.”
Green Roofs
Blum has been greening its roofs for over 20 years now – six of its eight plants in Austria have green roofs. These cover every area where they are deemed suitable for the company’s infrastructure development plans and where the building’s structure will allow it. At Blum’s plant in Poland, more than one hectare of the roof’s surface will be greened in the final expansion stage.
“A green roof has so many advantages that speak for themselves,” comments Laura Erhart, Project Manager for biodiversity and outdoor design at Blum. She notes that these include a natural insulation effect that compensates for temperature fluctuations in the building, reducing the need for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. Plus, green roofs bind CO2 and particulates and act like a filter that helps give us a healthier environment in which to live and work.
Erhart also mentions a number of other positive effects, including a certain reduction in noise as well as water retention when it rains, which reduces the load on the sewer system. “Given these advantages, it’s worth the effort,” she says, referring to the construction measures that – providing the building’s design and structure will allow it – can be put in place with regard to sealing and drainage before the actual greening can begin, which involves applying substrate enriched with organic material and the plants themselves.
Once planted, the spaces created by greening provide a new habitat for many different species of flora and fauna. And Blum makes an effort to not only maintain but enhance biodiversity in its own infrastructure where possible. In keeping with its sustainability targets, the company sets up additional green areas on roofs and façades and enhances the ecological value of existing ones. This also includes targeted measures aimed at maintaining the diversity of species, such as designing roofs to be “insect-friendly” using various materials such as sand and gravel. In this case the subsurface is shaped such that it offers suitable nesting places for insects, as demonstrated on an area covering more than 7,300 m2 on the roof of Plant 6 in Gaißau. “There are also extra piles of dead wood where they can hide,” explains Laura Erhart, “and a number of small biotopes help them get through longer dry periods and create a habitat for additional species with standing water. The effort involved in this is manageable and is basically limited to maintenance work that has to be carried out twice a year.”
Environmentally friendly commuting
Blum is also committed to raising awareness of sustainability issues among its staff in Austria. The family company has a number of exciting initiatives in place to support its employees, including its mobility concept where the business covers the costs of an annual public transport ticket for its staff.
“The ticket can be used for both commuting and leisure, so we’re encouraging people to use sustainable transport outside of work too,” explains Katharina Schön, Blum’s mobility expert. Blum also supports employees with the cost of buying a new bike and, as an added incentive, employees that make sustainable commuting choices can collect ‘Ecopoints’ and convert these into rewards. Before the mobility concept was introduced in 2021, 38% of employees at Blum Austria travelled to work using sustainable transport; today that figure stands at 46% on average.
‘Vision 2045’ project
To mark the UN Climate Change Conference, which took place in 2023, Blum joined forces with the ‘Vision 2045’ project to produce a video showcasing its sustainability initiatives. By creating a series of documentaries of this kind, the ‘Vision 2045’ project aims to highlight the actions different businesses around the world are taking towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. “We understand our responsibilities as an industry player and want to take action wherever we can,” explains company owner and CEO, Philipp Blum.
Company-wide initiatives
In the UK, Blum has recently installed 904 solar panels on its UK headquarters’ roof, generating 75% of the building’s power needs and estimated to save 94 tons of carbon per year. One of the project leaders, Matthew Glanfield, says, “At Blum UK, sustainability lies at the heart of everything we do. Now we have gone the extra mile by installing a magnificent solar farm, embracing renewable energy as much as we can and nurturing a brighter tomorrow. Our passion for sustainability has driven these steps, as we ramp up our efforts and continue to live by our values.” The solar panels will generate energy during both working hours and out-of-hours, as well as weekends, and any excess energy will be sold back to the main grid.
A few months ago, Blum took another step on its sustainability journey, with the initial installation of ten beehives in the Blum garden. Almost 90% of wild plants and 75% of global crops rely on bee pollination. Bees pollinate many of the crops used in animal feed, wild trees and flowers. An amazing one in every three mouthfuls of our food depends on these pollinators. Through this new addition, Blum hopes to support the environment and wildlife in the area, whilst also producing delicious honey in the process. The bee hives were installed by Home Farm MK on a sunny morning in June 2023.
“We are thrilled about the launch of our ten bee hives, which could potentially house a buzzing half a million bees!” says warehouse manager, Raj Tanna. “Doing our part for the environment, we are also looking forward to harvesting our own delicious Blumble honey. Our beehives are managed by a local company intent on helping make the world a more sustainable place.”
But this doesn’t end with green roofs in Austria and Poland, or solar panels and bees in the UK. Blum China and a large number of other Blum sites are working towards a more sustainable, eco-friendly infrastructure by installing photovoltaic systems that cover a large part of the respective site’s energy consumption. The company is aiming to pursue this path in a more consistent manner in future while taking into account as many sustainability aspects as possible. These include energy efficiency, a conscientious approach to resources, climate friendliness and, of course, biodiversity.
As these examples show, Blum understands its responsibility as a global player to be a role model for the furniture industry and is committed to investing in a sustainable future. At the same time, however, Blum knows that there is still much work to be done. Everyone must play their part, both within Blum and across the industry as a whole. It will take a willingness to change, a healthy dose of tenacity and, above all, flexibility, versatility and creativity – along with some “moving ideas for sustainability”.
As Philipp Blum puts it, “Change requires all of us. Every one of us has a vital role to play, because sustainability impacts us all.”
For further reading, Blum has also produced a sustainability brochure to illustrate its commitment and measures taken over the past business year. The 80-page brochure features the new sustainability logo and makes operational, ecological and social figures transparent and easily comparable. You can view it here – www.blum.com/gb/en/company/sustainability/overview/
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