German Sustainability Award goes to Werner & Mertz

Eco pioneer Werner & Mertz is a champion of the circular economy and active climate protection

Delighted in Düsseldorf: Yesterday’s awards ceremony for the 17th German Sustainability Award honored pioneering companies in the sustainability transformation. A jury of experts called the Mainz cleaning products manufacturer Werner & Mertz an eco pioneer and praised its sustainable ways of doing business. Owner Reinhard Schneider personally accepted the award.

“Especially in times of changing political direction and economic challenges, it is important for companies to set an anchor of trust and give consumers some relief and support. True sustainability—unlike trends—plays a big part when a brand also provides real quality benefits at reasonable prices,” said Schneider.

“Werner & Mertz GmbH came out on top in the final because the company has made particularly effective and exemplary contributions to the transformation. It has earned role model standing and has sent the right signals to its industry and beyond,” the jury said about its selection.

The Rhineland-Palatinate Minister President Alexander Schweitzer and the Council for the Future of Sustainable Development Rhineland-Palatinate congratulated Werner & Mertz at the awards ceremony. “Werner & Mertz has long given sustainability top priority. With its products that stand for energy-conserving circularity, the company shows how economic success can be connected to social responsibility and ecology. We in Rhineland-Palatinate are proud that the company is at home in Mainz. With its well-known trademark of the green frog, it sends important signals to consumers,” said the Minister President.

The manufacturer has  developed and implemented extensive solutions in all the prescribed fields of transformation.  The measures are based on a circular, ecologically effective product design that adheres to the Cradle-to-Cradle Principle.  Werner & Mertz designs its products for the Frosch and Green Care Professional brands in such a way that all the raw materials after their use remain in the biological or the technical cycle. In accordance with the “Design for Recycling” concept, the process begins with the use of renewable energies in production, continues with formulas containing integrally sustainable ingredients and includes packaging made of recyclate.

Werner & Mertz is recognized both as a pioneer for circular products in its two divisions (Consumer and Professional) and beyond its own sector and as the world market leader in the use of plastic material from the Yellow Bag.

For years Werner & Mertz has set new standards for ecological feasibility in mechanical recycling of plastic packaging and the use of Yellow Bag material. It has achieved “best practice” status and, as a pioneer, promotes the technological use of materials from the Yellow Bag for high-quality packaging and has shown a hundred million times the very real  scalable feasibility of its approach – for cosmetic products too.

The medium-sized enterprise holds its ground in a market dominated by global players, drives real change and active transformation, and proves to be a reliable partner for its stakeholders.

Consumers conserve resources and protect the climate by using the products without having to compromise on performance and quality.

The Mainz eco pioneer prevailed over several competitors in a multi-stage process. The first  selection round was based on AI-supported research on previously published sustainabilty information from the competing companies and jurors’ expertise. For the second round, the companies’ sustainability profiles were completed with input from detailed questionnaires. On that basis, the jurors selected the finalists and the winners in each sector.

Methods used to determine finalists and winners were developed and implemented in cooperation with PwC Deutschland and the Centre for Sustainable Management (CSM) of Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. Research was conducted by the Berlin startup score4more.