Our contribution to sustainable development
Dr. Constantin Schöler, Dr. Christoph Schöler
Sustainability report 2025
Fact-based, comprehensive, and without embellishment: The report provides information about the Brand Group's ESG activities – including progress and remaining challenges. We will continue to report according to ESRS – even without a legal obligation. Transparency is a matter of principle for us, not a requirement.
Dr. Christoph Schöler, Dr. Constantin Schöler
Executive Directors
Our CO₂e Transparency Initiative
Product carbon footprint:
We make the carbon footprint of our products transparent for our customers. We have introduced a systematic approach in accordance with DIN EN ISO 14067:2018 for all German locations of the Brand Group in order to determine the product carbon footprint (PCF) of our products. This approach has been validated by an independent testing agency.
United Nations Global Compact
With more than 20,000 participating companies, the United Nations Global Compact is the world's largest initiative for corporate sustainability and social responsibility. The Brand Group supports the ten principles of the UN Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labor standards, environmental protection and anti-corruption and has joined the initiative on September 30, 2024. In the future, we will therefore report publicly every year on the activities with which we integrate the ten principles into our business strategy and thus make a contribution to the United Nations' goals for sustainable development and social responsibility.
EcoVadis Sustainability Ranking
Since 2022, the Brand Group has been using the EcoVadis rating to measure its progress in sustainability. More than 300 criteria are evaluated, including climate protection, environmental friendliness, good working conditions, ethical conduct, and sustainable procurement.
In 2025, BRAND was awarded a Silver medal for its commitment, placing it among the top 15% of comparable companies. VACUUBRAND and VITLAB also participated in the EcoVadis rating in 2025 achieving Silver and Gold medal, respectively.
The consistent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in recent years contributes to the good rating, as do flexible, family-friendly working time models or increasingly sustainable procurement.
ACT Ecolabel
Many BRAND and VACUUBRAND products have been independently audited and verified through My Green Lab's ACT Ecolabel program, which provides transparent scores across manufacturing, energy and water use, packaging, and end-of-life impacts to help customers compare environmental performance among similar products.
Validation of our greenhouse gas (GHG) targets
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is a partnership between CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), the UN Global Compact, the World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It supports companies and financial institutions in setting emissions targets aligned with the scientific 1.5°C and “well-below 2°C” pathways. In addition, the SBTi reviews and validates the targets of participating companies and advances transparent, measurable emissions reductions worldwide for short- and long-term net-zero goals by 2050 at the latest.
As part of our SBTi commitment, we are focusing on measurable and verifiable emissions reductions across our value chain. Brand Group SE & Co. KG commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 42.0% by 2030 from a 2023 base year. Brand Group SE & Co. KG commits to reduce absolute scope 3 GHG emissions 25.0% by 2030 from a 2023 base year.
Reduce – Reuse – Recycle
Reduce – resource-saving production
At BRAND, intelligent resource management is a certified part of our company guidelines. Our environmental management system has been certified according to DIN EN ISO 14001 since 1998. Therefore, we are committed to continuously optimizing our environmental performance. In addition, our energy management system has also been certified according to DIN EN ISO 50001 since 2015. This makes us one of the pioneers in our industry for the intelligent use of energy.
In our factory we use 100 % ecofriendly energy and energy generated on premise from our high efficiency cogeneration unit.
To prevent unnecessary packaging, we try as much as possible to have our production materials delivered in reusable packages, which are then returned to the supplier and refilled multiple times. To prevent long transport routes, we work with regional suppliers to procure many of our production materials.
Our pipette tips also demonstrate how we are working to increase the resource efficiency of consumables. We developed a production method that allows us to manufacture our tips in an especially thin-walled design, which in turn saves materials. With the TipRack refilling system, we have also reduced the amount of waste by more than 20 % when compared with the TipBox.
Reuse – long-lasting and maintenance-friendly products
Using high-quality products as long as possible directly contributes to environmental protection, as we prevent the consumption of resources which are needed for the production of new products.
Quality and longevity have always been a characteristic feature of BRAND liquid handling instruments. In many laboratories, our Dispensette® S bottle-top dispensers have been in use for a decade or longer – the high-quality materials of the parts, which are in contact with media and crucial to the function of the instruments, make this possible.
Even in the case of life science consumables, there are ways to use products multiple times. Our solid TipBoxes can, of course, be refilled with pipette tips over and over again and they can be autoclaved multiple times at 121 °C.
The micropipette Transferpette® S demonstrates how we contribute to the long service life of instruments through simple maintenance and repair. On single-channel pipettes, the ejector and shaft can be removed and cleaned in a few seconds. Due to their patented design, the individual shafts of multi-channel instruments are also easy to unscrew, making them simple to clean and replace.
Recycle – recycling with a system
A lot of our packaging has already been recognized by our customers as “sustainable packaging”.
For much of our product packaging, we use cardboard with a recycling rate of around 90 % and we are working to become even more environmentally friendly in this area.
With the TipBoxes of our pipette tips, our customers can also contribute to recycling valuable resources. The entire TipBox is made of pure polypropylene and is completely recyclable. This also applies to the corresponding TipRack refill system, which is made of polyethylene.