Sustainability Report 2023

ENGEL
Sustainability Report 2023
Sustainable Focus Areas / 05/ Environment
The developments pursued by ENGEL in
the area of the circular economy are strongly
driven by the market and customer inquiries.
To accommodate this situation, the different
ENGEL business units (BU) meet weekly to
discuss the individual customer enquiries. The
developments in the area of the circular economy
are an interdisciplinary project within the
company and strongly characterised by an internal
exchange of knowledge.
Research and development are essential in
order to keep up-to-date and make progress in
this challenging area. At this point in time, the
legislator is demanding something for which
technical solutions do not yet exist. This is difficult
to achieve without partners, and ENGEL
therefore engages in partnerships and cooperation
projects with competitors, customers and
research facilities in the area of the circular
economy.
Horizontal integration
of the value chain
ENGEL has set itself the strategic goal of
supporting the circular economy along the entire
plastic value chain. This means that everyone
must work hand in hand, not only ENGEL itself
but also upstream companies along the value
chain, i.e. plastic manufacturers, and downstream
companies, which are manufacturers of
plastic products. This is the only way to ultimately
achieve the goal of a closed-loop circular
economy for plastics.
ENGEL is therefore not only a member but a
founding partner of the LIT Factory at Johannes
Kepler University in Linz, where prominent
companies along the value chain collaborate in
the area of the circular economy. A key element
in closing the recycling loop is digitalisation.
Plastic particles are proposed to be digitally
“tagged” in order to digitally identify the concrete
plastic qualities and impurities, in particular
in the case of recycled plastic. This allows
the plastic-processing ENGEL machine to select
the appropriate program for these qualities
and properly process contaminated materials.
ENGEL is a member of the following other
initiatives and cooperation projects:
Initiatives
• Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)
• UN Global Compact
• Platform “Verpackung mit Zukunft”
• AEPW – Alliance to End Plastic Waste
• New Plastics Economy – Ellen MacArthur
Foundation
• Member of R-Cycle, a large initiative concerned
with parts labelling as a basis for
regulated recycling routes
Cooperation projects
• K1-Center CHASE – Chemical
Systems Engineering
• Johannes Kepler University in Linz (JKU)
• LIT Factory at the JKU
• University of Leoben
• Wood K-Plus
• LCM
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