Corporate social responsibility efforts awarded in Gold!

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To guarantee its customers high quality and solution competence, Frauscher creates the ideal framework conditions by actively addressing the issues of sustainability, environmental friendliness and corporate social responsibility so that it can always be one step ahead of the market as a customer, supplier, strategic partner and know-how provider.

As an internationally renowned company, Frauscher is aware of its social responsibility on a regional and global level. Acting sustainably in the interests of the environment, customers and employees has been an important part of the corporate culture since the company was founded.

In keeping with the railway industry, which is rightly considered to be the most environmentally friendly means of transport today, the factors of sustainability and environmental friendliness are addressed internally. Concrete proposals and recommendations are subsequently implemented through numerous initiatives which are always thought through to the end.

At the Austrian site, this is driven by an environmental team in which colleagues with a special interest in the topic of sustainability and environmental friendliness from various areas of the company have come together. The environmental team is particularly concerned with raising awareness of its key points among the entire Frauscher team, encouraging everyone to come up with innovative ideas and tips for environmentally friendly cooperation in the company, as well as in private life. Many of these great suggestions are regularly shared in a blog. The team takes particular pleasure in the Frauscher bees that buzz around our company premises and produce delicious honey. The printer paper in the company has been switched to certified recycled paper and instead of batteries we only use high-quality rechargeable batteries.

Corporate Social Responsibility Report

On a global level, Frauscher as part of the DELACHAUX Group also contributes to its sustainable development, the details of which are described in greater depth in the recently published CSR Report 2020. The contributions are mainly present in the dimensions of safety, ethics, environment, management practices and community.

Between 2018 and 2020, CO2 emissions were reduced by 40% across the DELACHAUX Group. Furthermore, the frequency of lost-time accidents has been halved by promoting autonomy and responsiveness among all employees at all levels. In addition, almost 100% of Frauscher staff have received anti-corruption training as part of the ethics process.

First-ever determination of the carbon footprint at Frauscher

The first-time determination of the CO2 footprint in cooperation with the DELACHAUX Group also means the achievement of another milestone. This process has shown that we have performed very well compared to other companies and that the proven processes and measures for sustainable resource management can also be assessed as extremely successful through a new conceptual framework based on concrete facts and figures.

Furthermore, the findings from this process form the benchmark for future assessments and all other activities that are already in the planning and implementation phase. An initial evaluation of concrete measures derived from the existing data sets also suggests that major CO2 saving potentials can already be tapped into, for instance by making selective changes to central adjusting screws.

The future of business travel | New Work

The challenges of the last one and a half years have clearly shown how much the topic of corporate social responsibility affects everyday working life and how much it must be considered outside of traditional organisational structures. As with many companies, digital meetings, home offices and remote work had to replace the usual everyday working life and air traffic, which has largely come to a standstill. In this area in particular, the question arises not only for us but also for many other companies as to whether it now makes sense to resume travel activities to the "normal" extent to which they were previously accustomed.

All these developments open up a multitude of new perspectives that are not only taken up and implemented at Frauscher in the context of reducing the carbon footprint, but are also considered from the perspectives of digitalisation, new ways of working and modern workplace design. In the case of our company, this has shown that we can react quickly and flexibly to changes, both strategically and operationally through well-functioning interdepartmental cooperation, actively setting new trends in the process.

Sustainability in the supply chain

Frauscher's regional supplier policy which emphasises that all main suppliers are chosen from the immediate region of the St. Marienkirchen site, has had a hugely positive impact on the reduction of the carbon footprint. This is extremely important to mention, as sustainable action and management neither begins nor ends within one's own company but must be understood in the holistic context of the supply chain. From this, EcoVadis has established itself as the leading platform for sustainability assessment in global supply chains, used by thousands of companies to respond to sustainability assessment requests from their customers, as well as to create and maintain corrective action plans and centralise their sustainability-related records. In the process, over 300 multinational companies use EcoVadis to monitor the sustainability performance of more than 75000 trading partners.

The platform offers us the opportunity to transparently demonstrate our commitment to corporate social responsibility and sustainability to our customers as well as suppliers, and to communicate it in an internationally respected framework or rating system. In addition, we ourselves benefit from the structured implementation and improvement of processes as part of the EcoVadis assessment, which brought highly encouraging news in May 2021.

In the process, Frauscher managed to improve its performance from silver to gold.

The rating takes into account numerous aspects of Frauscher's already implemented CSR policy on the environment, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. It is possible for customers to request and transparently view these results directly via the platform.

Outlook into the future

At Frauscher, we are proud that we not only live in adherence to our social responsibility and sustainability values but can also prove it using clearly defined frameworks and key figures and communicate it to our stakeholders accordingly. Nevertheless, this is no reason to be satisfied with what we have achieved, but to incorporate the latest findings into ongoing projects. In this respect, we would like to tackle the existing potential for further improvement in the near future, both locally and globally.

For example, the team in St. Marienkirchen is currently dealing with the topic of mobility and travelling to work. Therefore, one of the next major projects is the implementation of an app for carpooling, not only to further reduce the carbon footprint, but also to promote greater levels of communication among all colleagues.

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Maria Reisinger

For Maria Reisinger, quality is the best business plan. She has been working for Frauscher in the area of quality management since 2005, and under her leadership Frauscher was certified for ISO 14001 in 2006. Further certifications followed. In...

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