Teaser_Offenburg-PV_2025

Powerful projects save energy and cut emissions in 2024

Sustainability

What’s the fastest way to massively shrink the CO₂ footprint of our manufacturing? Taking radical action to boost efficiency and embrace energy from renewable sources at every tesa plant worldwide! During 2024, our teams achieved significant progress toward our goal of climate-neutral production until 2030 (scope 1+2).

The latest science shows that 2024 was the hottest year ever. At the same time, the latest technologies are unlocking fresh ways of mitigating climate change – even in energy-intensive industries like the chemical sector. As a future-facing player within this sector, tesa is investing in state-of-the-art equipment and methods to save energy and reduce emissions at its sites.

We understand that our company’s future is directly connected to the environment we are part of. By taking action to cut the link between growth and emissions, we aim to ensure our license to operate and live up to our responsibility to help tackle climate change. Teams at our sites around the globe are following a holistic approach that is boosting efficiency and accelerating our switch to renewable energy. In this way, we are advancing toward our target of climate-neutral production by 2030. And we completed several highlight projects for this ambitious goal during 2024.

Digital, dynamic and decreasing emissions

tesa production sites in Germany ”electrified” their processes over the summer to send their combined heat-and-power (CHP) generators on a sabbatical in 2024. CHPs produce electricity, heat and steam for our manufacturing processes. But they also consume a large amount of gas, which causes CO₂ emissions.

The transformation was carefully thought through and planned. One main lever was to change purchasing behavior. Tranche contracts with fixed prices for the whole year were converted into flexible portfolio contracts. This secured fixed-price electricity quantities for us on the one hand but also allowed us to buy and sell electricity at favorable prices on the spot market. In addition, electricity is significantly cheaper in the summer. These changes made the CHPs unprofitable during the summer months and allowed us to take the CHPs off the grid. This dynamic setup in Germany enabled savings of round about 4,000 metric tons of CO₂.

The goal now is to dynamize the CHPs for us. Basically, we want to operate them cost-optimized in the short-term, depending on energy prices. Data-driven methodologies will help us to optimize our CHP generators: Algorithms predict energy demands based on production plans and weather conditions, computers analyze day-ahead energy prices and automatically adjust our CHP units to cut costs and decrease emissions – and even switch off CHP generators when other sources of electricity are cheaper.  
tesa plant Hamburg

Green hydrogen in Hamburg
 

tesa is investing millions in infrastructure to support the use of green hydrogen at our production site in Hamburg. This sustainable feedstock contains almost three times more energy than fossil fuel-based materials like gasoline or diesel. It is generated by passing renewable electricity through water to separate the hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Hydrogen is distributed via pipeline and then used instead of natural gas.
 
In cooperation with Energienetze Hamburg GmbH, tesa is connecting its Hamburg plant to a reliable supply of green hydrogen. In this way, we will take another important step to accelerate the decarbonization of our production processes. The first tesa tapes made using this sustainable feedstock will hit the shelves in 2027. Using green hydrogen could save up to 6,000 metric tons of CO₂ each year. In total, tesa is investing around 300 million euros in these and similar measures with measurable effects in the coming years. 
 

Concentrator Wheel_RTO

Wheel makes a real impact

The dedicated team at tesa’s site in Suzhou, China, contributed to reducing emissions by installing a concentrator wheel in 2024. This device operates within the exhaust air system for our manufacturing facility. The exhaust air is contaminated with solvents. Now, the wheel captures solvents from a large volume of air and concentrates them into a smaller stream.

In this way, the wheel enables more efficient and less energy-intensive thermal afterburning (incineration) processes for destroying those solvents. Looking ahead, we expect this installation to reduce the amount of natural gas required for air purification by 500,000 m³ per year.

PV Park Offenburg_9192cd3d-5da0-44ea-abf4-cfad0f37b2f7

Sourcing electricity from sunlight

Since 2020, all of the electricity tesa buys from external suppliers worldwide has been generated from renewable sources like wind or solar power. In addition, we are investing tens of millions of euros into on-site production of renewable energy at our facilities around the globe. Around 90% of our global electricity demand in 2024 was covered with electricity from renewable sources.

We expanded our on-site electricity production by adding photovoltaics in 2024. Our largest photovoltaic system to date, with a nominal electrical capacity of 5.5 MWp, was completed at the Offenburg plant in the reporting year and has been commissioned in February 2025. Further PV systems were put into operation at the headquarters and the Sparta plant. Further investments, both in photovoltaics and the building of wind turbines, are in the pipeline. In 2024, we generated roughly 4,000 MWh of renewable energy ourselves with photovoltaic systems across all locations.

 

Committed to climate-neutral production

The latest science confirms the severity of our planet’s climate crisis. But innovative technologies have the potential to help mitigate that situation. At tesa, sustainability is a priority and we embrace latest technologies and methods at our manufacturing sites to cut the link between growth and emissions in 2024. Now, our teams are implementing even more measures to keep accelerating progress toward our target of climate-neutral production by 2030.

Find out more about tesa’s sustainability strategy
 

We do: Reduce emissions

Tackling the global climate crisis and accelerating positive change are central elements of our committment. Our mission to reduce global emissions includes upstream and downstream processes as well as our own production. Green energy is a key pillar of our commitment. Since 2020, we have sourced 100 percent of our purchased electricity from renewable energy sources. In addition to reducing fossil-based energy consumption, increasing energy efficiency also plays an important role. To achieve this goal, we are implementing technologies that are particularly efficient in conserving resources and energy.

Read more about the targets of this action area