All 58 of the Mannheim, Germany-based companys production and non-production locations around the world will have their outstanding carbon footprints offset by investments in climate projects in six sectors – wind, solar, hydro, biomass, oven technology and reforestation – Apu Gosalia, Fuchs chief sustainability officer and vice president of global intelligence, told LubesnGreases.

The investments are certificates representing 1 metric ton of CO₂ issued on behalf of these accredited projects to offset Fuchs own remaining emissions.

Nature doesnt care where a ton of CO₂ is saved. It only cares that it is saved, Gosalia said.

Even though its lubricants cannot at this stage be carbon neutral because of their components, Fuchs will operate and manufacture them on a carbon-neutral basis.

Eventually, the company intends to draw down reliance on these investments and increase renewable energy usage and energy efficiency at its operations. It also intends to offer CO₂-neutral products to its customers in the long term, if it can secure CO₂-neutral raw materials from its suppliers.

Most of our suppliers are already receiving the message, Gosalia said.

However, some people have in the past called offsetting greenwashing, the idea that companies make a show of investing in green business practices in a bid for good public relations.

Offsetting is an additional tool. It is very welcome if companies offset with stringent sustainability criteria, as long as this is in addition to the transformational strategy of the … company, Christoph Bals, policy director of the environmental and development organization Germanwatch, told LubesnGreases by email.

Bals was critical of companies that offset without implementing consistent internal sustainability measures. We consider all offsetting activities which replace or delay the transformation of the company as greenwash, he said.

But such a high standard may ignore the complexities of the lubricants industry, which, by nature of its core purpose, reduces friction, wear and corrosion and therefore emissions.

If wed have done exactly what we are doing right now 10 years ago, right at the start of strategic sustainability management at Fuchs, everyone would have said instead of looking at how to optimize what you are intrinsically emitting and trying to find solutions, you are immediately offsetting in order just to be clean. But we have a track record of 10 years where we can prove we are looking at our own premises and trying to reduce whatever we can, Gosalia said.

Since then, Fuchs has reduced its energy-specific CO₂ emissions per ton of lubricant by around 30 percent from all operations mainly by reducing direct and indirect emissions from energy consumption. About 80 percent of the companys total CO₂ emissions are from product heating and electricity use.

Companies in the lubricant industry have been slow to follow suit, and Gosalia expressed his disappointment that they appear not to be pursuing a similar course. We are certainly not the only lubricant company in the world that is measuring this data. But so far, when I look at annual reports and websites of other lube companies, Fuchs seems to be among the very few that are publicly giving out these figures, he said.

This makes benchmarking a greater challenge, he continued.

However, Gosalia believes it will be a matter of time before other lube companies start implementing measures like Fuchs. Already, a European Union directive on non-financial reporting stipulates all public companies with more than 500 employees must report on their ecological key performance indicators, such as energy and water consumption and waste and CO₂ generation.

Fuchs has supported the United Nations 17 sustainable development goals since 2018, became a member of the Alliance for Development and Climate of Germanys Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and heads the Union of the European Lubricants Industrys sustainability task force.

We walk the talk, Gosalia said.