Palm is one of the three nominees in the category "Best Measures Environmental Protection" with the construction of the most modern paper machine (PM 5) for the production of corrugated case material at the company's headquarters in Aalen. In this category, sustainability measures and projects are awarded that have already been implemented and evaluated as part of an environmental management system to improve the environmental performance of processes, products or services.
For ecological reasons, the trend is towards corrugated case material in particularly light grammages, as these enable material savings and lead to a reduction in the weight and volume of packaging. "The products from the new PM 5 further improve the eco-balance of already sustainable corrugated packaging," summarises Stephan Gruber, Palm's Managing Director Technology. "By using the latest technologies such as the innovative waste paper pulping technology - Green Pulping - an improved fibre yield with lower energy input is made possible in the recycling process. In combination with the innovative drying technology - OptiDry - particularly lightweight corrugated base paper can be produced on the paper machine even more efficiently and in a resource-saving manner. Overall, this reduces energy consumption and emissions throughout the entire value chain," says Stephan Gruber, explaining the use of state-of-the-art technology in the production process.
The German Environmental Management Award is the official follow-up competition to the EMAS Awards at national level, which were last announced in 2019 in the European environmental management system Emas ("Eco-Management and Audit Scheme").
A panel of experts from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, the Association for Sustainability and Environmental Management e. V., German EMAS Advisory Board, , the DAU - Deutsche Akkreditierungs- und Zulassungsstelle für Umweltgutachter mbH (German Accreditation and Admission Officefor Environmental Verifiers) and the United Nations University (UNU), vote on who will receive the Environmental Management Award 2021.