q.beyond to become climate neutral by 2025

- CO₂ savings above all for electricity, business travel and vehicle pool
- Publication of first DNK-compliant Sustainability Report
- IT services from q.beyond promote sustainable business activity

Cologne, 30 April 2021 - The IT service provider q.beyond intends to become climate neutral by 2025. To achieve this, the company will gradually reduce its CO₂ emissions by a total of 40% compared with 2019 and offset its own other emissions and all other major sources of emissions involved in providing its IT services.

Data centres already fully powered by green electricity

q.beyond's CEO, Jürgen Hermann, states: "By drawing on our Cloud, SAP and IoT services, our customers will in future make an even greater contribution to climate protection." q.beyond has procured all electricity used to power its data centres from renewable energy sources since 2018. Now the company is further reducing the resources used by other emissions sources. The measures being implemented to achieve this goal include converting the electricity supply at all of its locations to regenerative energies. Moreover, the company will reduce CO₂ emissions incurred for business travel and by its vehicle pool and will increasingly rely on e-mobility, particularly for its company cars.

q.beyond will measure its progress as it heads for climate neutrality by compiling CO₂ balance sheets pursuant to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The CO₂ balance sheet is a constituent part of the company's latest Sustainability Report, which for the first time meets all requirements of the German Sustainability Code (DNK).

Customers improve their climate balance sheets with q.beyond

Among other aspects, the Sustainability Report shows how q.beyond supports its customers in reducing their resource use and thus already promotes sustainable business activity. The award-winning "StoreButler" platform designed by q.beyond, for example, helps to reduce waste volumes at grocery retailers. Another internally developed device, the "Edgizer", enables industrial companies to network their machines and plants, optimise their management, and maintain them on a remote basis. This reduces the need for business trips and replacement parts and helps these companies to improve their climate balance sheets.

Jürgen Hermann is convinced: "For anyone wishing to halt climate change and cut their CO₂ emissions, there is no alternative to digital solutions. Digitalisation and sustainability are two sides of the same coin and our future." This created a twofold opportunity: "We can grow and effectively protect the environment." Despite the severe recession, in 2020 the company increased its revenues by 13% to € 143.4 million and posted a new record level of new orders. For the current year, q.beyond has planned further double-digit revenue growth, in this case to between € 160 million and € 170 million.

Climate neutrality opens up new growth opportunities

Jürgen Hermann expects to see ongoing growth momentum in the years ahead: "The coronavirus crisis has enormously accelerated digitalisation. At the same time, companies wish to reduce emissions throughout their value chains. Our commitment to climate neutrality and experience with digitalisation make us an ideal partner for companies, especially in our focus sectors of retail, manufacturing and energy. That is precisely where further growth opportunities are now arising."

The Sustainability Report 2020 and further information can be accessed here: www.qbeyond.de/en/sustainability.

About q.beyond AG

q.beyond AG is the key to successful digitalisation. We help our customers find the best digital solutions for their business and then put them into practice. Our strong team of 900 people accompanies SME customers securely and reliably throughout their digital journey. We are experts in Cloud, SAP and IoT.

q.beyond AG resulted from the rebranding of QSC AG in September 2020. With nationwide locations and its own certified data centres, it is one of Germany's leading IT service providers.

Contact

q.beyond AG
Arne Thull
Head of Investor Relations/Mergers & Acquisitions
T +49 221 669-8724
[email protected]
www.qbeyond.de