Climate Actions

Bike Leasing

Commuting by bike has a number of advantages: it reduces carbon emissions from transportation, improves air quality, and promotes a healthier lifestyle for employees. Additionally, it reduces traffic congestion and the need for parking space, therefore improving urban environments. All our permanent employees can use a company bike through job bike leasing. We also provide showers and lockers, to make it practical and pleasant to cycle to work during the warm months. 

At kiutra, more than 10% of employees use JobRad service saving at least 1.68 tons of carbon dioxide emissions till date (March 2023), equivalent to the carbon captured by 85 trees in a growing year.

Climate Neutral Printing Paper

Environmental impact of paper production includes deforestation, massive energy and water use, as well as air, water, and land pollution. With countless paper options available it’s interesting to look into the labeling. For example, on the paper we use:  

The ‘EU ECO Label’ sets requirements for the entire manufacturing process of the paper. To conserve water and air, the use of chemicals is limited. The standard requires at least 70% either recycled and/or certified material, such as FSC and PEFC.

‘FSC Mix’ means the product is made with a mixture of materials from FSC-certified forests, recycled materials, and/or FSC-controlled wood. While controlled wood doesn’t come from FSC-certified forests, it mitigates the risk of the material originating from unacceptable sources.

Plus, there is ‘TCF’ (bleached without the use of chlorine) and the paper is climate neutral, which means the CO2 and other gases harmful to the climate are measured over the entire production chain and compensated. There is also CO2 neutral paper, where compensation is only applied to the CO2 released.

Green Electricity

Generating ultra-low temperatures is extremely energy intensive. In particular, running mechanical closed-cycle coolers, used in all modern “dry” cryostats for cooling or pre-cooling, results in an electricity use of typically 6-10 kW per unit. With continuous operation, this very quickly adds up to significant power consumption. Cryostats are usually in use for many years, sometimes decades – this means that to operate cryogenic systems in a climate-friendly way, the energy has to come from green, climate-neutral sources. This can result in major greenhouse gas savings, as a simple example calculation for a single typical unit shows:

Assumptions: Power consumption: 8 kW | Service life: 5 years | Annual operating time: 340 days

Total power consumption: 326,400 kWh

CO2 Footprint: 131 t (electricity mix, 401 g/kWh) vs.  0.9 t (green electricity from hydropower, 2.7 g/kWh)

CO2 savings: 130 t. This value corresponds to >60 average EU households or 5900 trees, i.e., a forest of the size of approx. 25 soccer fields.

This makes it clear that green electricity must be one of the most important building blocks of our sustainability strategy – we therefore only use certified green electricity from environmentally friendly hydropower. As a result, we reduce our carbon footprint not only when operating our multiple coolers (e.g., in their manufacture and operation on behalf of customers), but in all other areas of our business: administration, sales, development and production.

Source: Ökostrom-Vergleich: echte Ökostromanbieter finden | co2online

3D Printing

3D printing is an important tool we use in development and various production processes.

Traditional methods to prototype metal parts require multiple stages of production, such as cutting, molding and assembly, each generating emissions. With 3D printing, parts can be created in a single build, reducing the energy used and emissions produced.

Additionally, 3D printing enables on-demand production and eliminates the need for large inventory stockpiles, creating savings in storage and transportation.