It is obvious that filtration and environmental protection are inextricably linked. After all, the essence of filtration is to make things clean or to separate the harmful from the useful. The products often also ensure that machines run longer or consume less energy.
But we at Hengst go far beyond the obvious: in addition to our company-wide climate targets, we are also working to ensure that our products themselves become increasingly climate-friendly: In terms of materials, production processes or many other parameters.
Our goal: purifying our planet
Energy-efficient filters for less power consumption
Energy-efficient filters, for example, are important in many areas. When developing our products, we pay particular attention to ensuring that they consume as little energy as possible while offering high filter performance. This saves our customers and end users a lot of money and reduces CO2 emissions.
We have this energy efficiency certified by Eurovent in accordance with ISO 16890.
Clever choice of materials for lower CO₂ emissions
Even in our original sector, the automotive industry, we can use leverage to create more climate-friendly products. This is because more than 70 percent of the CO₂ emissions from an Oil filter, for example, are caused by the raw materials used.
As original equipment, we produce a Fuel filter with end caps and inner dome made from recycled plastic for a renowned vehicle manufacturer. We have already done the same with an oil filter insert with a production volume of several hundred thousand filters per year. This reduces the product carbon footprint by 82 percent compared to a conventional spin-on filter!
In the spare parts business, we have also developed an Oil filter that, thanks to recycled plastics and a filter medium made from recycled materials, produces 30 percent less CO₂ emissions from material procurement to disposal while maintaining the same performance.
We are pursuing this approach in the selection of raw materials in many other areas, so that we are continuously reducing CO₂ emissions from raw materials and lowering our product carbon footprint.
New technologies for a better planet
Hengst is also constantly striving to develop completely new areas of application that will make the planet a better place to live. One example of this is our developments for carbon capture technologies, which remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and, ideally, make it available for further use. Or the filtration and separation solutions for fuel cells for an important type of drive in the future.
In the area of basic research, the developers at our Tech Center Filtration are researching completely new, climate-friendly methods and materials. This includes, for example, PFAS-free screens for filter inserts, which are intended to replace these environmentally harmful "eternal chemicals" in the long term.
Global responsibility
Sustainability is a lived responsibility for us. Our memberships in the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), the United Nations Global Compact and the Münster Climate City Agreement help us to strategically implement environmental and climate targets. We are guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and work continuously to make our production, products and supply chains environmentally friendly and socially responsible.
Measurable standards
Binding targets are more than just words for us: our head office has been climate-neutral since 2022, our climate targets have been validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) since 2025 and our production is climate-neutral. We want to make the entire Hengst Group carbon neutral by 2030.
We have been awarded the silver medal by Ecovadis, the globally recognized assessment platform for sustainability, making us one of the best companies in our industry.
