Community Engagement

Community engagement is an important part of STILL’s identity as a business. As a global company, STILL strives to be a good neighbor to the local communities at its sites around the world, by lending its support to social and humanitarian projects. STILL’s headquarters in Hamburg, for instance, have a long history of supporting community organizations in the city where the company was first founded and where, decades later, it maintains a strong sense of affinity.

To ensure all actions by the company and its staff are transparent and within the law, STILL follows the KION Group policy on donations and sponsorship, which governs all aspects of the Group’s community engagement activities, including areas of responsibility and decision-making processes. This policy was last revised and improved across the Group in 2020. It covers both financial donations and volunteer work, and is designed to facilitate fast and pragmatic decision-making at local level and enable a rapid response in case of emergencies, such as natural disasters.

The KION Group Code of Compliance also contains relevant information on community engagement and gives confidence to managers on the ground that they are acting in line with the law. All donations and sponsorship arrangements must be verified and approved in advance by the compliance department. Donations must always be transparent, follow a strict set of standards, uphold the values and policies of the KION Group, and conform with any applicable legislation.

In all its community engagement activities, STILL makes a clear distinction between donations and sponsorship. Donations are voluntary gifts of money or items that are given to charities without any expectation that this action will be reciprocated. In contrast, sponsorship is awarded in return for a service such as advertising or marketing. For this reason, it is vital that recipients’ intentions in accepting donations or sponsorship are compatible with the values and principles upheld by the KION Group.

Taking Responsibility—Creating Equal Opportunities—Shaping the Future

These are the three pillars that underpin STILL’s corporate values and in each case the company takes its responsibilities very seriously. Since 2010, STILL has been supporting three local projects in Hamburg that promote equal access to education, culture, and community for children and young people across the city. In 2024, STILL presented checks worth 5,000 euros each to the Mittagskinder foundation, Kultur Palast Hamburg foundation, and Produktionsschule Wilhelmsburg school. The Mittagskinder foundation provides a regular healthy lunch for around 200 children in Hamburg. The foundation’s team also spend time with the children, giving them attention, a sense of community, and specialist support with their homework. The Kultur Palast Hamburg foundation, meanwhile, has been promoting cultural understanding through interactive music and dance projects for more than 40 years, and the Produktionsschule Wilhelmsburg is committed to ensuring equal access to education for all. The school helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter the jobs market by providing relevant training, particularly in technical professions, carpentry, catering, retail, and hairdressing In addition to providing financial support, STILL also works together with the school to offer work placements, factory tours, and even apprenticeships.

STILL also supports the work of Hamburg-based aid organization Hanseatic Help e.V. and in 2023 provided the organization with an EXV high-lift truck that serves as a powerful means of support for operations at its warehouse in Hamburg Stellingen. Hanseatic Help has been supporting people in need since 2015 and its dedicated team of volunteers face an enormous challenge in storing, organizing, and dispatching the countless donations that the charity receives. Every week, Hanseatic Help distributes around 30,000 items—mainly clothing and hygiene products—to people who need them most.

STILL also continues its commitment to sports in 2024. Once again, over 50 athletes from STILL took part in the annual Suzuki World Triathlon in Hamburg. This year, for the first time, STILL also provided eleven forklift trucks as official logistics partner, and 60 volunteers attended, offering refreshments and support to all participants at the STILL Energy station along the route. STILL’s commitment to sports is impressive; at this year’s annual MOPO team relay race, the company once again fielded one of the largest groups with 220 runners taking part in this popular company run.

Promoting Talented Young People is a Top Priority at STILL

STILL also took part in Future Day again in 2024. One hundred and sixty school students took the opportunity to attend this event and spent what was undoubtedly an unforgettable day at the STILL plant, where they took part in a wide variety of activities. STILL’s apprentices and work placement students in Hamburg took the lead in looking after the students and gave our young guests an authentic insight into STILL’s training program. They started by sharing basic technical principles at a total of ten stations, gave the students the chance to look over their shoulder as they worked, and patiently answered the participants’ many questions. But as there’s nothing like trying it for yourself, we also gave the students the chance to get actively involved at the work benches in the apprenticeship workshop, where they fabricated the STILL logo and a puzzle made of metal, soldered an LED light in the mechatronics lab, and operated the AR (augmented reality) welding machine used by STILL’s construction mechanics. The top highlights of the day were working with a forklift simulator in the high-bay warehouse and using a pair of VR goggles, which gave the students a glimpse of what the future holds at STILL. Apprentices from mechatronics, industrial mechanics, construction mechanics, and cutting machine mechanics as well as trainee industrial executives and warehouse logistics specialists were there to support the young visitors at all of the hands-on stations.