A company that wants to be synonymous with sustainability needs to take three aspects of the term into account, environmental matters, economic factors and social issues. Unfortunately, there are some companies which, although they may be producing eco-friendly solar technology, do not always take proper care of the environment in doing so. They may, for instance, handle waste inappropriately, neglect to apply proper pollution control or allow their employees to work in hazardous conditions.

At SCHOTT Solar, responsibility for employees and society has been part of our corporate culture from our company’s inception. Dr. Holger Hoppe explains how the company puts these principles into practice in its day to day business.

What is SCHOTT Solar’s “holistic concept of sustainability”?
SCHOTT Solar is continuously working to improve its performance on sustainability, which for us relates not only to our entire production process, but also to our product’s life cycles. We select the materials for our products very carefully, avoid waste and we are always highly conscious of our product’s overall environmental impact. Our high quality standards are likewise part of the way we view sustainability, because long product life cycles and high reliability impart environmental and economic benefits.


Markus Söder presents Umweltpakt Bayern certificate to SCHOTT Solar


What concrete action do you take for sustainability?
We take a lot of action. One of the most important things we do for sustainability is drawing up life-cycle assessments for our products, our sites and the company as a whole. Alongside this, we set high standards for sustainable waste management, such as recycling solutions for used modules. Across all our sites, we are involved in a large number of projects and associations We are members of the Environmental Agreement for Bavaria (Umweltpakt Bayern) and PV CYCLE and work on sustainability issues within the photovoltaic association EPIA. On top of this, we don’t just sell our products,  we use them ourselves on a large scale, with solar systems installed at a number of SCHOTT sites. Another issue of the future connected to sustainability is electric and sustainable motor vehicles, we support this by sponsoring the e-bikes run by the MÜNCH Racing Team, multiple European champions in e-motorbike racing. We are also involved in a number of community projects in Africa, one example is the solar system from SCHOTT Solar which ensures an uninterrupted power supply for a small hospital in Senegal, meaning medical devices are always ready for use and medication constantly refrigerated.


Solar system on hospital premises


Why are life cycle assessments so vital?
There are a lot of good reasons for conducting life cycle assessments, also known as carbon footprints, in the context of climate change. They help to identify and record every type of environmental impact a product has and use these findings in product development. This process enables us to clearly define effective means of leveraging higher sustainability in product design and production and take them into account in the product development process,  action which is essential to minimising impact on the climate and achieving climate protection targets, among other things.