HGK Group inaugurates new corporate headquarters

‘The HGK Group is an innovative and committed company, focusing on bring more traffic on to waterways and railways. With the services it offers along the entire transport chain, which are important for climate policy, it fulfils an important mission for the supply of business locations of North Rhine-Westphalia. The new HGK head office is the ideal, attractive platform for building this sustainable corporate strategy together with customers and partners for the benefit of the people and the economy in our region’, said Krischer in his speech.

Some 80 honoured guests took part in the event, including representatives of the city of Cologne, political and business representatives, as well as guests from the transport and logistics industries. ‘Right in the middle, not just nearby’ - that is how Uwe Wedig, Chairman of the Board of HGK AG, described the location of the new HGK head office. ‘Here, where a part of our operative business takes place, here, where the music plays, so to speak, we are in exactly the right place’, added the HGK Group CEO. ‘This is a preliminary highlight in the development of the HGK Integrated Logistics Group – but indeed it’s only temporary, because we are constantly moving forward.’

The building that is at the same time energy-efficient and representative has been constructed on a 3000 square metre plot and houses some 300 jobs. The total floor area is 8500 sqm. Despite difficult conditions caused partly by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the overall costs remained within the planning framework at just under €23 million including added revisions, while the projected timeframe for construction of under two years was not exceeded.

The structure, built to the ‘Effizienzgebäude 55’ standard of the KfW, uses 45 percent less energy than the applicable building regulations require. Helping add to this is the photovoltaic system on the roof with a peak output of 99 kWp, which is used primarily for the building’s own needs. Consideration was also given to nature and animal protection during construction. The majority of the trees on the site have thus been integrated into the project and compensation measures put into place, such as nesting boxes for the garden dormice species that settle here.

At the inauguration the Mayor of Cologne, Dr Ralph Elster, stressed the importance of the HGK Group for the regional economy. ‘Since it was founded, now 31 years ago, HGK has been a reliable partner to the commercial and industrial sectors in our region. Without the port infrastructure and railway links that HGK have provided, the reliable supply to many of our major industrial sites in the region would scarcely be conceivable. Logistical infrastructure makes their existence possible in the first place and therefore is an important location factor’.

Michael Theis, executive director of the HGK shareholder Stadtwerke Köln Konzern (SWK), commended the development of HGK into a modern, customer-orientated company: ‘HGK has initiated a comprehensive programme of transformation and is successfully implementing it in many market areas despite all the adversities. An integrated logistics group is emerging here under the umbrella of a common brand.’ Yet the processes involved were not limited to the company’s own business units but have also been implemented in cooperation with partners from the SWK group. He cited the example of HGK’s logistics project Fusion Cologne: ‘This project exemplary combines production and logistics innovatively, sustainably and according to the needs of the future. The project is a key element of the city’s ‘Kölner Perspektiven 2030+’ strategy and demonstrates how important the strong network of the SWK group is for Cologne.’ Fusion Cologne represents innovative concepts in fields such as digitalisation, mobility, recycling economy and heat supply.   

Beforehand, the board of HGK and the CEOs of the HGK business divisions had met with NRW minister Oliver Krischer to discuss the general conditions and requirements of the transport and logistics sector. ‘We see ourselves as architects of cargo transport. Here, the waterway system, which expressly involves all modes of transport, plays a significant role. Only when barges, trains and trucks work together in concert we will achieve the necessary changes and leverage the potential for modal shift that is part of a sustainable economy. To achieve this, we need to replace ideological ways of thinking with considerations on how we can arrive at intelligent transport concepts’, said HGK CEO Uwe Wedig explaining his viewpoint.