Finzelberg is a NutraIngredients Award finalist with its Go Zero sustainability initiative

• One of three candidates for the 2024 Editor’s Award for Sustainability Initiative of the Year
• With its Go Zero target, Finzelberg is a climate protection pioneer
• Prizes to be awarded in Geneva on May 15 by an expert jury from NutraIngredients Europe

This year for the tenth time, the NutraIngredients Awards will honor the best and brightest product innovations, marketing successes, research and initiatives in the dietary supplements and functional food & beverage industries. A new category introduced last year is the Editor’s Award for Sustainability Initiative of the Year, and Finzelberg has been named one of this year’s three finalists for the award.

Effective sustainable action across the board

NutraIngredients is the key news source for the functional food & beverage and dietary supplement industries. Editor Nikki Hancocks explains that the Editor’s Award was created to commend companies with outstanding sustainability initiatives: “Our sector needs genuine commitment and plenty of creativity to achieve net zero emissions by 2030 and make a real contribution to reaching the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.” She added that with its Go Zero action plan, Finzelberg is demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness of sustainable business operations across the board: “Finzelberg’s approach combines many and varied measures such as targeted crop rotation, the use of waste wood from local forestry operations as a replacement for natural gas, and the innovative production of biochar to sequester carbon.”

Michael Braig, CEO von Finzelberg, is delighted: “As experts in botanical efficiency, at Finzelberg we have been embracing sustainable practices for years. We pledged to become climate-neutral by 2025 and are consistently pursuing that goal, step by step. Making it to the final three in the Sustainability Initiative of the Year category constitutes recognition of our hard work and persistence and of the successes we have enjoyed so far, which are the sum of many measures large and small. Becoming a finalist has also made our successes visible to a wider audience.”

A climate neutrality pioneer 

The Go Zero action plan aims to reduce CO₂e emissions by 55% compared to the level in 2020. This commitment begins right at the beginning of the value creation chain – in the cultivation of plant raw materials – and continues through processing, refining and packaging all the way to transportation and final delivery to customers in the pharmaceutical and dietary supplements industries.

Recently, with the help of independent certification body TÜV Rheinland, Finzelberg was able to provide transparent evidence that it reduced its CO2e emissions by a total of 4,200 tonnes from 2020 to 2022. That’s a reduction in site-related CO2e emissions of almost a quarter.

As a pioneer within the nature network, Finzelberg aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2025 – five years earlier than the rest of the group, which also includes MartinBauer, Europlant Group and PhytoLab. All business divisions have submitted their climate targets to the Science Based Targets initiative for validation.

Awards ceremony in Geneva on May 15 

The Editor’s Award for Sustainability Initiative of the Year rewards outstanding initiatives in Europe that are delivering impact towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. All NutraIngredients Awards in a total of 14 categories will be presented at a ceremony in Geneva on the evening of May 15, 2024.