Environmental sustainability

As a software company, AEB has a low consumption of natural resources compared to companies in other sectors. The issues that concern us most here are energy consumption, land use, water consumption, and waste production. We're constantly working on these fronts to reduce our consumption. Some actions we've initiated:

• Largely eliminated paper in offices
• Adopted a policy for electronic devices at the end of their useful life - laptops, mobile phones, etc. – to be donated, passed on to employees, or refurbished
  
• Switched from under-utilized fixed-lease office space to variable co-working spaces at several international sites
  
• Minimized kitchen waste
  
• Reduced consumption of cow's milk and meat in favor of more alternative options (oat milk, vegetarian dishes)

When it comes to climate action, AEB follows the principle of “first avoid, then reduce, then offset.” We began with a detailed analysis to determine the major sources of our emissions. Among the findings: employee commutes, fuel and energy consumption, business travel, and food. To reduce our emissions here, we're taking the following actions:

• Introduced sustainable energy management in our HQ by heating the office space with waste heat from our on-site data center, using our rooftop solar panels to produce electricity, etc.
• Further electrified our fleet and added new charging stations
  
• Subsidized sustainable commuting options like public transit and cycling
  
• Switched to green electricity at all sites with few exceptions

As a software company, AEB has a rather small carbon footprint. To offset the portion of our carbon footprint that we cannot eliminate through measures, we invest in internationally recognized and certified climate protection projects in cooperation with our partner Treeo: afforestation in climatically favorable but otherwise disadvantaged regions of the world. We are demonstrably helping to cool the climate by doing so.

Treeo's approach has convinced us: The carbon stored in trees as they grow is recorded using scientifically based methods and continues to be monitored after ten years when the wood is used in timber construction and turned into biochar.

Small farmers are responsible for the reforestation projects. Their income increases the better the forests are maintained and the more carbon is bound accordingly. This is supported by a specially developed app for measuring individual trees, which records the biomass obtained through reforestation. Additional satellite data and a risk buffer of 20% protect the targeted cooling effect through carbon storage against various risks.

We also support carbon sinks such as the “Pfrunger Ried (DE)” wetland.

From 2023 to 2024, we were able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around ten percent to around 3,070 t CO2e. Per capita, the reduction was over 20% to 4.14 tons of CO2e. The largest proportion – over two thirds of our GHG emissions - is generated in Scope 3. Purchased goods and services as well as business travel account for the largest share here.

AEB is working on a decarbonization strategy that covers all three areas of emissions. The focus is on reducing Scope 3 emissions, particularly in the purchase of goods and services, business travel, and employee commuting.