Moving forward together

As a way of finding good answers to forward-looking questions, Endress+Hauser is networking more and more both inside and outside the company. The result is innovations that benefit customers and boost sustainability.

Text: Christine Böhringer, Kirsten Wörnle

Photography and illustration: Endress+Hauser, 3st kommunikation, Pexels, Shutterstock, Unsplash

Corporate culture

Sustainability

Innovation

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Various Endress+Hauser teams are working in Freiburg, Germany, on measurement technologies of the future.

Boundless ideas

18 November 1955 was a historic day for Endress+Hauser. That was when company founder Georg H Endress visited the forerunner of today’s Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) to file a patent application for a measuring probe with an electrode. What he did back then laid the foundation for the company’s culture of innovation: Its portfolio of industrial patents now encompasses more than 9,000 active patents and patent applications. There are currently 4,000 registered trademarks – and an undiminished spirit of innovation.
Accordingly, the online statistics platform Statista in 2025 once again recognized Endress+Hauser as one of the most innovative companies in Switzerland.

The right mix
So what is the source of this success? “Innovation is one of our growth drivers; that is why we encourage inventions and improvements throughout our company,” says Dr Andreas Mayr, chief operating officer at Endress+Hauser. More than seven percent of Endress+Hauser’s turnover goes into research and development. Around 80 percent of that amount goes to optimizing the portfolio; the remaining 20 percent is plowed into the advancement of new technologies and business models. The company provides incentives for inventors and promotes an exchange of ideas among them with an annual Innovators’ Meeting.

Endress+Hauser gains fresh inspiration through open innovation concepts. One example comes from the six groups working on tomorrow’s sensor technologies and software solutions at the FRIZ innovation center, located on the University of Freiburg campus in Germany. The developers are closely networked and embedded in an environment of research institutes, startups and established companies. In the first two years they had already filed patent applications for 35 inventions; more than one third of those were created in cross-group collaborations. Indeed, development activity nowadays is almost always teamwork. “That shows how important a mutual exchange of ideas is for the creative process,” says Dr Christine Koslowski, director for intellectual property rights.

Sustainable from the outset

In future annual Innovators’ Meetings, Endress+Hauser will be awarding an additional prize for eco-design and the circular economy. “The award is aimed at continuing to steer the company’s product development toward sustainability. It will focus on inventions that combine our measuring instruments’ exceptional functionality and reliability with a resource-saving and eco-friendly approach,” says Daniel Persson, process and portfolio manager for innovation at Endress+Hauser. There are numerous opportunities to reduce measuring instruments’ carbon footprint through their design: paring back the amount of material that goes into them, manufacturing from more eco-friendly raw materials, lowering their energy consumption or extending service life are a few examples. Circular business models are likewise eligible for the award. “We want to use the prize to pay tribute to our inventor teams and create role models for sustainable product development,” says Daniel Persson.

9,000

patents and patent applications are in the Endress+Hauser intellectual property rights portfolio.

Pooling knowledge

Endress+Hauser participates in the Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam (ETCA), an initiative launched by energy company Shell. The campus environment is collaborative, with companies and research institutes working together on innovative solutions for the energy transition. Endress+Hauser’s role in the ETCA includes active exchange of knowledge, collaboration on projects and providing expertise for key technologies like green hydrogen and carbon capture.

On the right path

Endress+Hauser attained yet another sustainability milestone when the Science Based Targets initiative endorsed the Group’s greenhouse gas reduction goals. This confirms that it is in line with the 1.5 degree path set out in the Paris Accord and corresponds to present scientific understanding. The Group has pledged to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 (based on 2023); no more than 10 percent may be offset by ongoing carbon capture and storage. By 2034 the Group’s direct and indirect emissions (Scope 1 and 2) should already be 80 percent lower; greenhouse gas emissions in the upstream and downstream value chains (Scope 3) should likewise be down by 35 percent.

20%

of R&D expenditure at Endress+Hauser goes into new technologies and market scenarios.

Clean water

A better water infrastructure for Lillydale elementary school in South Africa: Endress+Hauser employees around the world will dedicate themselves to this goal as part of the Water Challenge 2025. Launched in 2019, this internal initiative is about collecting money through sponsored runs and other joint sporting activities that will bring people access to clean drinking water; in every case the company then doubles the amount collected. The proceeds go to selected aid projects in Asia, South America and Africa. In 2024 they were used to refurbish the well of an elementary school in Bushbuckridge in South Africa. In addition, the school received Hippo rollers – barrel-shaped 90-liter containers that are easy for people to roll along, thus making lighter work of transporting drinking water.

Published 26.03.2025, last updated 08.04.2025.

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