Technological progress in renewable energies on the one hand, and the drastic increase in energy prices as well as the urgency to slow down climate change on the other entail risks and opportunities for companies. This also applies to the Freudenberg Group that aims to be climate-neutral by 2045, and whose sites depend on reliable energy supplies.
We need green energy at moderate prices at all our global sites.
Dr. Tilman Krauch, Freudenberg Group CTO
“We need green energy at moderate prices at all our global sites,” says Dr. Tilman Krauch, Freudenberg Group CTO, “and we need to address the ‘future of energy’ early enough so that we are strategically well-positioned.”
One building block for this is the “Energy Price Chaos: Shifting Market and Technology Dynamics,” event which took place as a hybrid in Weinheim and online on June 20, 2022. Roughly 80 participants, including 50 representatives from all the Business Groups, attended one of each of the two sessions. Planning for the event had started in October last year since energy prices had already risen sharply at that time – albeit that they were only about one-third of today’s costs. “The facts prove that today’s topic is a burning issue,” said Krauch during his opening remarks.
Trends, opportunities and uncertainties
Dr. Aline Fluri, Strategic Projects CTO Office, and Martin Skrobisch, Head of Energy Purchasing, led the program. Although Krauch asked attendees to view the event as an introduction and invited them to continue exchanging ideas with the experts at any time afterwards, they provided a comprehensive overview of trends, opportunities and uncertainties at the event itself: from the dynamics of the energy market, to how energy prices come about and insights into the energy markets of eleven selected countries, to various energy procurement options. The focus, however, was always on how Freudenberg can further reduce the impact of the energy market’s high volatility on its own business.
Answers were provided by Skrobisch with Freudenberg’ energy purchasing strategy and Dr. Bilguun Bayarmagnai, Head of Corporate Sustainability, and Jens Hammer, Energy Services, with insights into Project BEE (Be Energy Efficient), Freudenberg’s approach to saving energy, electrifying processes and contribution to Group-wide climate change targets. At the end of the event, Fluri thanked participants for their questions and interesting comments, saying: “They mark the starting point for our upcoming exchange on the future of energy for the Freudenberg Group.”