Climate and environmental protection at VS

Running a Business in Harmony with Nature

Wind turbines on farmland in the Tauber valley

We feel an obligation duty to our environment. That's why we make every effort to avoid any harmful impacts on people and nature that could arise from the manufacture, use or disposal of our products.

Environmentally Aware Manufacturing

We keep the possible effects on people and the environment in mind during all phases of production and design and keep them as low as possible.

Our goal is to continuously reduce CO2 emissions at our site. We rely on renewable energies and are expanding them. We regularly invest in energy-efficient production facilities. Our energy management system is certified according to DIN EN ISO 50001.

In production, we ensure that we use the optimum amount of material.

“We believe it is an important company principle to handle natural resources responsibly in manufacture just as much as in transport and disposal.”
Philipp Müller, Managing Partner

Protecting Resources

We think about our materials in terms of a ‘life cycle’. This is how we ensure that products can be recycled. When using raw materials, we make sure that we use the material as efficiently as possible and thus reduce offcuts and waste to a minimum.

We use modern powder-coating plants with a high recovery rate for the unused coatings.
We only use beechwood chips obtained from sawmill waste wood. LIGNOdur boards are therefore an environmentally friendly product.
We burn chipboard residues from our own production facilities to generate the heat and energy used in our manufacturing plants and offices.
Steel tubing offcuts and metal waste generated are scrapped and thus fed into a long-established form of the circular economy.
Furniture parts made of plastic – such as the LuPo seats or the Hokki – are made out of polypropylene. Polypropylene is not only hard-wearing and thus long-lasting, but also completely recyclable.
To save on packaging waste, we largely use no packaging materials when transporting furniture. The focus is more on protection in transit. The material that is used here is reusable, for example furniture blankets. In turn, they are made of 100% recycled materials.
We make sure to keep transport distances as short as possible when sourcing our materials. That is why we source the majority of our materials from Europe, and most of those from Germany.
We make sure to keep transport distances as short as possible when sourcing our materials. That is why we source our materials almost exclusively from Europe, and most of them from Germany.

Climate and environmental protection in figures

hand adjusts a heating thermostat to save energy

Saving Energy

We make sure that we use only as much energy as is really necessary, and aim to use the most efficient energy generators possible as well as to use renewable energy sources. Our energy management system is certified to DIN EN ISO 50001.

A light bulb with a tree instead of a filament

Using Regenerative Energy

At the Tauberbischofsheim site, we are continuously reducing the use of fossil fuels and focussing on renewable energies. It is more important to us to directly reduce our CO2 emissions through various measures instead of purchasing emission certificates. We produce electricity in an energy-efficient manner using our company's own combined heat and power plant. Further measures are currently being planned.

Metal pipes for long-distance heating against a blue sky

Relying on District Heating

We incinerate the wood chips that accumulate in our wood-based materials processing. This is how we generate around 50 per cent of our heating energy. We have installed our own district heating pipe so that we can also use the heat in the adjacent workshops. This enables us to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.

A colourful wildflower meadow in full bloom next to the VS head office.

Preserving Natural Habitats

We are revitalising our company grounds from an environmentally friendly point of view. We are recultivating the open spaces with native trees and shrubs and are creating insect meadows.
In the process of building the new Plant 7.1, we have invested in a large number of compensation measures - far more than required by law. In the neighbouring deciduous woodland, we have put up bat boxes, made by our apprentices together with Naturschutzbund Deutschland e. V. (NABU).

We have restored the filled-in spaces around the plant with green strips, low-nutrient meadows, habitats for larks, butterflies and wild bees and strips of field hedges. There is also an amphibian pond on the site. Here, the native common toads can spawn safely and the tadpoles grow up in the shallow water areas. Birds and insects use the pond as a source of drinking water.

In addition, for many years we have operated a market garden on our site according to the biological guidelines, which supplies the company restaurant. Once a week, employees can buy fruit and vegetables for their personal use.