Sustainability in the plastics industry
12.02.2025“Starlinger is one of the medium-sized Austrian companies that has been fulfilling its social responsibility in a variety of ways for a long time”, explains Ilona Wimmer, Head of the CSR department at Starlinger. “We published our first sustainability report in 2022 – an analysis of our status quo in the area of CSR and sustainability at the time. Based on this, we defined measures, many of which are currently being implemented or have already been completed. The present report provides an overview of what has happened at Starlinger over the last two years in terms of sustainability and CSR.”
Austrian machine manufacturer Starlinger contributes to sustainability and circular economy not only with its plastics recycling systems and machinery for sustainable woven plastic packaging. It has also been implementing CSR and sustainability measures within the company for years – the most current ones are outlined in its Sustainability Report 2024
© Starlinger
In addition to a materiality analysis, in which internal and external stakeholders gave their assessments on a total of 18 sustainability topics, the new sustainability report includes detailed analyses of energy consumption, emissions and waste generation in the company, as well as information on the energy-saving measures implemented. In the social area, the “Fit & X'sund Weissenbach” project has been addressing the issue of health and satisfaction in the workplace since 2023. Starlinger also supports sustainability-oriented research projects by associations and research institutions; among others, Starlinger currently collaborates with the Josef Ressel-Zentrum for Recovery Strategies for Textiles (ReSTex) at the Biotech Campus Tulln (part of the Wiener Neustadt University of Applied Sciences) on a project for the recycling of clothing and textiles made from cotton-polyester blends.
Sustainable, environmentally friendly and socially responsible business practices are not only in the focus within the company itself. Through its machines and packaging products, Starlinger passes them on to customers all over the world: When designing its sack production and recycling systems, the global market leader for machines and technology for the production of woven plastic sacks pays particular attention to criteria such as lowest possible energy consumption, avoiding of production waste, and maximum production efficiency. Consequently, the woven plastic sacks that are produced on Starlinger systems are also “designed for recycling”.
“Especially in the plastic packaging industry it is very important to ‘live’ sustainability both internally and externally,” emphasizes Angelika Huemer, Managing Partner of Starlinger & Co Gesellschaft m.b.H. ”As a machine manufacturer, we design the production processes of our systems in a way that allows our customers to produce with as few resources and emissions as possible – be it woven plastic bags that can be used several times and are easy to reclaim, or recycled plastics that is returned to the product cycle this way. For us, used plastics are not waste, but a valuable raw material for new products.”
The CSR department at Starlinger is headed by Ilona Wimmer since August 2024. Together with her team she is responsible for initiating and implementing various projects in this area. Having worked for the company for over 20 years – previously in Controlling – Wimmer took over from Clarissa Graf, who has built up and managed the CSR and sustainability department at Starlinger since 2019.
The next step is to prepare for sustainability reporting as part of the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). “In the coming months, we will focus intensively on data collection and data management, among other things, so that we can present the sustainability report for our 2025/26 annual financial statements in compliance with the law,” says Wimmer.
