In a factory in Vantaa, a city in southern Finland, scientists and engineers are working on a groundbreaking innovation that converts carbon dioxide and hydrogen into a protein powder called Solein. The mustard-yellow powder, developed by Solar Foods, can be used in protein shakes and bars, pasta, and meat alternatives. The company claims Solein has dramatically lower emissions than conventional protein, and almost completely decouples protein production from land—reducing the need for intensive agriculture.
German engineering company GEA Group invested €8 million ($9.2 million) in Solar Foods earlier this year, taking a roughly 5.5% stake in the Finnish company and becoming its strategic partner. It is the latest example of GEA’s commitment to sustainability—backing not just the idea of a more sustainable food system, but the technologies that could make it commercially viable.
“I strongly believe that it is necessary to do something to save this planet,” says GEA Group CEO Stefan Klebert. “We are in climate change—nobody, I think, can ignore this anymore. We can do better.”
Beyond the Solar Foods investment, GEA is embedding sustainability into its core business. It is currently redesigning the machinery and systems it manufactures—which are used to produce food, drinks and pharmaceuticals—to make them significantly less energy intensive (its technologies are used in dairy processing, food drying, fermentation, freezing, and packaging). The company is targeting net zero across its value chain by 2040, with plans to invest around €175 million ($201.9 million) over that period in decarbonizing its own factories.
“We are in climate change—nobody, I think, can ignore this anymore. We can do better”
GEA Group CEO Stefan Klebert
As the debate rages about whether European companies can realistically meet their net-zero targets while achieving the growth needed to remain competitive with China and the U.S., GEA’s stance stands out.
Earlier this year, a survey of more than 300 European chief sustainability officers by management consultancy Horváth suggested that around two in five companies are reassessing their climate ambitions in the face of short-term performance pressure and geopolitical uncertainty. More than half (57%) of respondents to a survey of European businesses by EY said sustainability initiatives would be among the first to go if they had to make cuts.
In contrast, GEA Group says it has shown that sustainability can be baked into a profitable business model. Its revenue grew to €2.7 billion ($3.1 billion) in the first half of 2026, 5.7% higher than the same period last year, and its EBITDA before restructuring costs rose 10% to €456.5 million ($526.7 million), with a 16.8% margin.
Klebert attributes this to a shift in culture: Rather than pursuing incremental productivity gains from an already resource-intensive process, GEA now tasks its engineers with finding step-change reductions in the resources required to produce the same amount. “We put a very strong focus on our engineers to come up with energy saving solutions,” Klebert explains. “I told them, don’t innovate to find 15% more output. We want to do the same thing, but with 30% to 40% less energy, less water, or any other resources.”
He gives milk drying as an example: GEA developed an industrial heat pump that it combined with a milk spray dryer, allowing one of its customers, the Danish organic milk producer Arla, to produce the same output while cutting total energy consumption by more than half. The energy saving was so dramatic that Arla’s local energy supplier called to check if something was wrong.
This approach is becoming a growing advantage for GEA Group, as companies across Europe face depleted energy reserves and rising costs this winter, partly resulting from the Iran-U.S. conflict. “A lot of companies are struggling with high energy costs. Especially in Germany, energy prices are sky high and going up because of a lot of stupid decisions that have been made [at a policy level],” says Klebert. “So, for us, the focus on sustainability is not only coming out from the conviction that we need to do something good for the world—it is also a business model.”
He acknowledges that there are differences between businesses depending on the sector they operate in. “We have an advantage that our customers are highly energy intensive, and if we innovate in saving energy, it helps us to reduce our scope 3 [emissions] and, at the same time, deliver a tangible benefit to our customers,” says Klebert. “There might be other industries where it is different, where the company itself consumes a lot of energy—a chemicals business, for example.”
However, he believes that business leaders across all industries have a responsibility to drive change. “Of course, we have to stay competitive, but it’s also about innovation, having good ideas and meeting the challenge, because I think there is no other way. Of course, it costs money. But if you have good products, if you are innovative, if you have an efficient organization, you can afford it,” Klebert adds.
“No company, I’m quite convinced, will go out of the market because of the decision to do something good for the planet. That’s my deep conviction.”
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