In good taste: Fuchs Gruppe’s climate action recipe
About Fuchs Gruppe: From Dissen to the world
Fuchs Gruppe is a family-run, mid-sized enterprise headquartered in Dissen, Lower Saxony. It’s one of the leading providers of spices and herbs with over 3,000 employees across four continents, supplying retailers, foodservice providers, and food processing industry for over 70 years.
Fuchs’s portfolio includes traditional spices and herbs, technological flavour solutions for industrial use, and international delicacies. In Germany, consumers recognise and trust established brands such as Ostmann, Fuchs and Bamboo Garden.
The challenge: Complex supply chains, limited data
As part of its sustainability strategy, Fuchs set out to calculate and reduce its company-wide carbon emissions. This ambition came with several challenges:
- Limited data availability and quality, particularly its scope 3 emissions
- High complexity in carbon accounting along its global value chain
- Evolving and often unclear regulatory requirements
Against this backdrop, Fuchs chose to develop a clear roadmap for its climate strategy in collaboration with ClimatePartner.
The approach: Carbon footprint data management
The goal of the collaboration was to create transparency around the carbon emissions of the entire group. This would provide a solid foundation for reduction measures and the submission of science-based targets to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Together with ClimatePartner, Fuchs focused on three approaches:
- Structured collection and validation of relevant emissions data by experienced ClimatePartner experts
- Methodologically sound support in classifying and prioritising emission sources, especially in scope 3
- Provision of a clear project plan with defined milestones, responsibilities, and timelines
The results: Calculation, science-based targets
Based on this data, Fuchs Gruppe was able to calculate its Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) for the first time in 2023, including FLAG-relevant emissions. This serves as the basis for prioritising reduction measures and having its science-based targets validated by the SBTi.
Key outcomes
- Comprehensive Corporate Carbon Footprint for reporting year 2023 (including all scopes and FLAG emissions)
- Validation of short- and long-term climate targets, including FLAG targets, by the SBTi in late 2025
Next steps in climate action
- Annual update of the CCF to track progress
- Collection of primary data on raw materials in close cooperation with ClimatePartner to ensure high data quality
- Expansion of the decarbonisation strategy based on SBTi-validated targets
- Long-term integration of climate action into business processes
With its CCF and SBTi-validated targets, Fuchs Gruppe has a verifiable basis for decarbonising its operations.
"The creation of our first global corporate carbon footprint was a challenging project. ClimatePartner impressed us with its clear methodology, structured approach, and open, pleasant cooperation. The CCF was a decisive first step for us on the path to our climate strategy and defining our climate targets. Only by truly understanding our carbon emissions can we derive effective measures for greater climate action."