The IoT and RFID technology company has been measuring its sustainability rates since 2021 and finds reductions in waste within the first year.
For several years, Identification technology company Beontag has built a path to boost sustainability and equity at its company as it grows its global presence. Last month, it released its 2022 ESG (environmental, social, and governance) report detailing the gains it has measured between 2021 and 2022, which found that the company was on track or ahead of its stated ambitions. That means monitoring its carbon footprint, increasing sustainable product sales, and diverting waste from landfills. The report found that as of 2022, 90 percent of products were sourced from local suppliers in its Graphics and Labels Materials (GLM) division.
The company says it has additionally strengthened its relationship with clients by offering sustainable solutions, by holding meetings to discuss how these products could support customers’ ESG agendas and how Beontag is managing its impacts. Beontag also earned a 120-million-euro, Sustainability-Linked Loan (SLL), which contains incentivized terms that are linked to Beontag ESG targets. Beyond sustainability, in the effort to increase gender equity, the company report found that it had more female workers overall, as well as females in leadership positions, including managers and above.
Beontag, a global company, has been expanding. It offers identification and digital technologies including products and solutions using RFID and IoT enablers, as well as graphics and label production.
The company completed its 2022 ESG Report this summer, which measured company-wide sustainability at a complex time – following a series of global acquisitions. In 2022, Beontag acquired five new firms and is working to integrate them as a group. These included RFID smart tags provider Confidex, IoT company Temera, self-adhesives, and label makers Scandstick, Technicote, and Linerless.
The company aims to be a borderless, end-to-end provider of graphic and label materials and IoT solutions rooted in sustainable technologies, says Barbara Dunin, Director of ESG, Marketing, and Communications.
The sustainability strategy was developed in 2021, and the report for 2022 found that the strategy was meeting its targets thus far. “I think that 2022 was an important year for Beontag when it comes to sustainability because that was the first year that we could put our ESG strategy to the test,” Dunin says.
Reduction in Landfill and Higher sustainable product sales
Beontag’s GLM division is dedicated to label manufacture, and its Digital Transformation Enabler (DTE) unit provides IoT and RFID technologies. The DTE division has a production capacity of 5 billion RFID inlays per year, while the GLM capacity is 1.2 billion square meters of self-adhesives, annually.

Barbara Dunin, Director of ESG, Marketing, and Communications, Beontag
Beontag has been monitoring the volume of waste generated globally which varies in different parts of the world. Waste management policy is different in different regions, for instance. Broken down by the two critical business units across its entire enterprise, the report found that 71 percent of Beontag’s GLM sales comprised sustainable products in 2022, which rose from 67 percent in 2021. In the DTE sector, sales of sustainable tags increased five times, from 3.5 percent of all tags sold in 2021 to 18 percent in 2022. The goal for DTE sales is 70 percent sustainable products by 2030.
In both the GLM and DTE divisions, the percentage of production waste diverted from landfills almost doubled in the past year. In 2021 the company’s GLM group was able to divert 26 percent of waste from landfill to recycling or incineration. That number rose to 50 percent in 2022. DTE improved from 35.2 percent diversion in 2021 to 56 percent in 2022. This was accomplished through more robust waste management and disposal practices, says Dunin, and sustainable materials.
The company offers what it calls its ECO technology with fiber-based paper ECO RFID tags, free of plastic and recyclable. She says that in 2022 the UHF RFID-based ECO RFID tag saw sales rise five-fold. While the ECO RFID tags represented 3.5 percent of global sales of RFID tags in 2021, in 2022 that number was 18 percent.
In the long term, Beontag intends to focus its ESG department on spreading awareness of how RFID technology can improve a company’s sustainability – by bringing visibility to the movement and status of goods. And as part of the company’s overall sustainability education and outreach efforts, it has been holding an average of two meetings with clients per week over the past year “That showed how the market is demanding more information about ESG,” Dunin says.
Gaining Equity with Higher Female Representation
In the meantime, the number of women working at Beontag in 2022 rose by 2 percent from the prior year – from 28 percent to 30 percent. For those in leadership, there was a movement toward female representation as well. In 2021, 21 percent of those in leadership positions were women, while that number rose to 24 percent in 2022.
These numbers indicate the company is on target to reach a 50-50 equity of the sexes by 2030, in leadership positions, Dunin says. She points out that the manufacturing sector is often male dominated, so Beontag’s effort is to attract and train more women to its production facilities “because this is where the biggest percentage of employees in our company are,” she says.
In the long term, the company intends to improve monitoring and then set a target to reduce CO2 emissions over its entire enterprise, as well. That effort will require the collection of more extensive data across the company’s sites, including the facilities of the last operation acquired in 2022, located in the US.
Thus far, because Beontag is growing, and subsequently its production is rising, the volume of greenhouse gas emissions produced is also on the rise. Over the coming years, the goal is to create and meet emission targets, “so that is something that we will continue to measure, even as the company grows,” Dunin says.
In parallel, Dunin is leading the RAIN Alliance Sustainability Working Group which is tasked with identifying, developing, and publishing materials related to the use of UHF RFID and its relationship with sustainability. The working group will launch a survey asking companies about the connection between their current RFID endeavors and their sustainability goals or targets. In that way, the RAIN Alliance intends to understand how RFID is being used for sustainability efforts going forward.
Key Takeaways:
- Beontag’s ESG Report 2022 finds the company on track to meet its long-term sustainability goals for landfill reduction, increased sustainable product sales, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
- The report also finds the company has gained in female representation in its overall staff numbers as well as management, while it eyes a 50-50 ratio by 2050.