Whey to go: Ehrmann's path to decarbonisation

About Ehrmann

Ehrmann is an international, family-run dairy group headquartered in Oberschönegg in the Allgäu region of southern Germany. The group includes Milchwerke Gabler-Saliter, Molkerei Hainichen-Freiberg, Genusswelt Zimmermann, and other international sites.

Ehrmann’s sustainability strategy

As a family business, Ehrmann sees sustainable business practices as a prerequisite for its future viability. It has therefore made sustainability a strategic priority in its 2027 corporate strategy. The focus areas are climate action, energy and resource efficiency, water management, biodiversity, agriculture and animal welfare, and packaging, waste, and the circular economy.

Since 2021, the company has regularly calculated its Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) at site level. This makes its emissions transparent and shows the reduction potential at each site.

For the 2024 financial year, Ehrmann produced its first group-wide CCF within its defined organisational and operational boundaries. It covers scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and relevant scope 3 categories, and reports forest, land, and agriculture (FLAG) emissions separately.

The family business is also committed to protecting natural resources and biodiversity. Its activities include a group-wide biodiversity policy, support for the Wilde Weiden Günztal project, tree-planting campaigns, and collaboration with farms and nature conservation organisations. Ehrmann records its water consumption and explores ways to reduce and reuse water and to manage water resources responsibly.

Ehrmann’s sustainability strategy includes many more measures. Ehrmann supports, informs, and advises its dairy farmers, and trials measures on farms in areas such as feeding, herd management, energy efficiency, and manure management.

Ehrmann is also working to make its packaging more recyclable and to reduce waste and food waste. These efforts are part of the company’s overarching climate strategy, built on targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Decarbonisation: Pastures and plants

As a dairy group, Ehrmann faces a particular challenge: its measures also have to be implemented locally, on the dairy farms that supply its milk.

ClimatePartner supported Ehrmann every step of the way, from its first group-level corporate carbon footprint through developing its climate targets to submitting them to the SBTi and achieving validation. Early dialogue with farmers was central. Ehrmann agreed on solutions with them instead of imposing them from the top, so both sides could discuss the need for climate action as equals.

Building on this, the group worked with ClimatePartner to develop a decarbonisation forecast up to the target year. This structured analysis makes the main emission drivers and reduction levers transparent. It lays the foundation for prioritising climate action measures and assessing their impact in a traceable way. If progress deviates from the plan, regular reviews of target achievement and the identification of further areas for action help Ehrmann adjust course.

A clear course to 2032: SBTi-validated climate targets

With the data and methodology developed together, the logical next step for Ehrmann was to develop and validate its science-based targets with ClimatePartner too.

Ehrmann has set science-based near-term targets with 2024 as the base year and 2032 as the target year. The SBTi validated Ehrmann’s scope 1 and scope 2 targets, a 33.6% reduction compared with 2024, in July 2026.

The SBTi-validated targets also include a 23.08% reduction in absolute non-FLAG scope 3 emissions by 2032 and a 24.2% reduction in absolute FLAG emissions from agriculture and forestry. The targets are publicly available on the SBTi Target Dashboard.

With its dedicated FLAG target, Ehrmann commits to reducing emissions linked directly to sourcing agricultural raw materials, above all milk production. For a dairy business, this is one of the biggest and most difficult levers for reducing emissions.

Concrete measures to reduce emissions

Ehrmann has set ambitious targets for the future and is already taking concrete steps to reduce emissions today:

• Renewable electricity: Ehrmann’s German sites Oberschönegg, Saliter, and Zimmermann have sourced electricity from renewable sources since 2021, using the appropriate procurement and verification instruments.
• Energy efficiency at production sites: At its Oberschönegg site, Ehrmann uses combined cooling, heat, and power (CCHP) to supply energy more efficiently. Ehrmann also already uses renewable energy from hydropower and has improved energy efficiency through technical optimisation and modernised equipment.
• Heat recovery loops: At several production sites, Ehrmann uses systems that recover heat and put different temperature levels to use where they are needed. This means less additional energy is required.

Next steps: Decarbonisation roadmap and carbon footprint of milk

By calculating its CCF regularly, Ehrmann can continue to track emission trends and identify reduction potential.

A particular focus for Ehrmann is calculating the carbon footprint of the milk the group sources directly from local farmers. This makes the environmental impact of its raw material sourcing transparent. The results feed into Ehrmann’s overall CCF.

Building on its SBTi-validated climate targets, Ehrmann is working with ClimatePartner to develop concrete measures. They are grouped into energy, processes, packaging, transport, and agriculture, and assessed by reduction potential and feasibility.