Waberer’s Group wants to combat carbon emissions with an electric truck fleet, the use of alternative fuels and a combination of rail and road transport. The company’s first comprehensive group-wide ESG strategy addresses employee diversity and increasing the proportion of female employees in addition to further developing greener services.
Waberer’s Group presented its new business strategy last year, simultaneously with a group-wide ESG strategy. The company has been focusing on developing its sustainable service portfolio for years and actively responds to issues affecting the sector, such as labour shortages and the low proportion of female employees, but for the first time it has integrated its goals into a complex entity along ESG aspects. Unusually for the industry, Waberer’s publicly unveiled its ESG strategy at a women’s day brunch for all-female partners.
As a publicly traded company, Waberer’s pays close attention to sustainability, mitigating environmental impacts, addressing labour shortages and serving employee needs, but for the first time presented a comprehensive group-wide ESG strategy with specific goals. Recently, Waberer’s developed a new mobile app that aims to encourage drivers to drive environmentally conscious and economically.
“ESG compliance is not only important for investors looking for ESG considerations, but also for employees, especially younger people, and customers. Most of our clients are large companies that also have a sustainability strategy and typically set expectations for subcontractors themselves. At Waberer’s, we have already taken many measures, such as reducing carbon emissions and greening our operations, and we have announced several initiatives for the benefit of our employees. However, for the first time, we organized these efforts into a complex unit, which forms our ESG strategy along the sustainability pillars of environmental, social and corporate governance,” says Krisztina Patai, ESG Director of Waberer’s.
Significant emission reductions with alternative fuels
Waberer’s has already set several goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption in the fleet in recent years, thanks to which the company group currently operates one of the largest alternative powertrain truck fleets in Hungary, with a total of more than 20 trucks with alternative powertrains.
Since 2023, HVO 100 has been using second-generation biofuel, one of the most sustainable fuels made from plant and animal waste on the market: compatible with diesel vehicles and generating up to 90 percent less carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional diesel fuel. In 2023, Waberer’s was able to achieve CO2 savings of more than 55% compared to conventional diesel for journeys using the HVO 100. The company group has recently signed an agreement with MOL and MÁV-Volán Group concerning hydrogen technology, as its main goal is to establish an operation based on hydrogen technology in Hungary in the coming years.
In addition to electric propulsion and HVO fuel, Waberer’s has also been using LNG vehicles since 2021, which are a more environmentally friendly alternative, reducing carbon emissions by around 20%. In the future, the Group will further expand its alternative powertrain fleet: WSZL – Waberer’s Group’s logistics subsidiary – plans to increase the size of its alternative fleet by 50% in 2024 and extend its alternative powertrain operation to the international transport segment by 2025.
Connecting multiple modes of transport
The intermodal service, which consists of connecting several modes of transport, was introduced by Waberer’s in 2021. One way to do this is to combine rail and road transport and thus make use of the high capacity of rail and the flexibility of road transport. Rail transport is a more cost-effective, green solution that can reduce the load on the road network, but air and sea transport can also be a real option in the offer of green services. Waberer’s aims in international transport to increase the proportion of rail and intermodal transport, for which there has been continuous customer demand for the past three years.
It is already at the forefront of gender equality
In addition to its environmental commitments, Waberer’s has formulated several aspirations for its employees. In recent years, the Group has done a lot for the well-being and satisfaction of its employees, including special training, programs focused on health promotion and community building. Creating and maintaining an attractive and progressive workplace will continue to be a priority goal in the future, by offering professional training and monitoring points for improvement. An important goal is to sensitise employees to topics such as non-prejudice and equal opportunities.
Diversity and gender equality are also key to the strategy. The labour shortage is strong in the logistics sector, therefore the company employs foreign workers in a smaller part, but in the 3700-strong driver staff, and the resulting diversity offers many opportunities to strengthen the employee community. Waberer’s is already at the forefront of increasing the proportion of women: a significant number of its managers are women, it provides female instructor mentors to train female drivers, and last year it established the “Female Logistician of the Year” award to highlight successful women professionals. Waberer’s will continue these initiatives this year and will try to find further solutions to help recruit female colleagues.
Source: Waberer’s
