"For the SSI Schaefer Group, sustainability is important in two respects: On the one hand, we see ourselves as a service provider that offers its customers innovative and sustainable intralogistics solutions, and on the other hand as a globally active company that acts responsibly towards society, customers and employees," says Steffen Bersch, CEO of the SSI Schaefer Group. Last fall, the company from Neunkirchen in the Siegerland region, which employs around 10,000 people worldwide and recorded an order intake of almost two billion euros in 2021 (up 17.5 percent on the previous year), adopted its own sustainability strategy. It covers all four business divisions - Logistics Solutions, Products & Equipment, Customer Services and Waste & Packaging - and is due to be published this summer.

SSI Schaefer showed what solutions can look like at Expo 2020 in Dubai in recent months. As an official partner of the consortium of the German Pavilion, SSI Schaefer presented a solution for vertical farming in the City of the Future area of Campus Germany, which attracted more than 2.5 million visitors from 180 countries. Together with Infarm, the fast-growing urban farming company with a global presence, data-driven modular vertical farming units were set up. Herbs and vegetables are grown in them under perfect conditions with 95 percent less water and land compared to conventional farming. The use of chemical pesticides can be completely dispensed with. In this way, arable farming can be carried out up to 400 times more efficiently in terms of the area cultivated than in the conventional way.

Other projects on the customer side also show that SSI Schaefer's intelligent intralogistics solutions have helped to meet customers' needs more sustainably over the past year. One example is the new warehouse of the Bertelsmann subsidiary Arvato Supply Chain Solutions. For the Gütersloh site, a new, additional picking warehouse was needed in the limited space of just 900 square meters, which is designed for a throughput of around 16 million books per year. In terms of sustainability, existing intralogistics systems, processes and material flows were to be retained. Ergonomics and user-friendliness were also important factors in the development of the new picking workstations.

The project, which was to be implemented during ongoing operations, was carried out in three stages: First, the order start in the old system was relocated and automated. This was followed by the connection of the fully automated high-bay warehouse to the existing and future warehouse systems. The third and most important project phase consisted of setting up the shuttle warehouse, another automated warehouse for small parts, which uses shuttles to efficiently store and retrieve items. In order to make optimum use of the available space of just 900 square meters, the newly developed, ergonomic workstations, where the orders are put together, were placed on the storage cube. This also allows for future expansion

A broad portfolio from SSI Schaefer that focuses on sustainability. CEO Steffen Bersch promises: "In 2022, the SSI Schaefer Group will continue to focus on modular and scalable intralogistics solutions. The topic of sustainability plays a prominent role in this."