This year, Messer, the largest family-run industrial gases specialist worldwide, is once again taking part in Earth Hour and will be switching off the lights at its sites in Krefeld and Bad Soden, Gemany, between 8.30 p.m. and 9.30 p.m. on March 27. Earth Hour is a WWF initiative and also the largest global climate and environmental protection campaign. In 2020, millions of people from 190 countries supported the campaign, including in Germany - here there were 373 cities, hundreds of companies and thousands of private households.

Environmental protection has a high priority at Messer: the family-run company is constantly working to reduce greenhouse gases and waste generation, as well as fuel and water consumption. "We support the protection of the environment and the climate by constantly improving our own processes and also focusing our development efforts on technologies that make our customers' production processes more efficient and environmentally friendly," emphasizes Stefan Messer, owner and CEO of Messer Group GmbH. The less electricity Messer's production facilities consume, the better for nature. Therefore the company’s goal is to reduce the specific energy consumption of its air separation units over the long term by an average of 0.7 percent per year. This will be achieved through better utilization of our production plants, continuous investment in even more efficient plants, and projects specifically designed to increase energy efficiency. Specific energy consumption at the Messer Group including the Western European subsidiaries was most recently reduced by 1.6 percent in 2019 compared to 2018. A Global Energy Officer has been in charge of energy management at Messer since 2014.

The industrial gases specialist publishes more detailed information on its environmental and climate protection activities in its annual sustainability report.