Our commitment for your success

Sustainability for the environment, the industry and our customers

The biggest step towards sustainability in the translation industry probably happened back in 1995 with the emergence of commercial Internet. Sending documents by email instead of by mail represents one of the most important steps toward sustainability. With the increasing digitisation, other best practices have now also proven to be effective in meeting our responsibility to nature, at least within the realm of the possible.

Within our organisation

Paperless office

Like most paperless offices, we still have printers, but avoid printouts whenever possible and only use them for communication with German authorities.

Waste separation and recyclable coffee capsule

In order to serve the coffee needs in an uncomplicated way, we have switched to a practical yet environmentally friendly alternative.

Remote work

Through regular and employer-supported remote work, our employees do not need to commute to the office every day. Especially for longer distances, this significantly reduces the ecological footprint.

Carbon footprint while travelling

When travelling to customers, events, and trade fairs, we always pay attention to our footprint and almost exclusively travel by train. In this way, we reach most of our customers in the DACH region in an almost CO²-neutral manner.

CSR together with Support Ulm e.V.

Through our location and the cooperation with the local university hospitals, we became aware of the projects of this non-profit association.
The association organises many actions which directly help the affected people, e.g.:

• a book on the medicine of the San (indigenous bushmen in Namibia) was supplemented with practical modern health prevention measures.
• The book was then printed and distributed in the local language.
• Medical personnel were trained in Namibia and inter alia linguistically prepared for their work in Germany.

Sustainability in the corporate environment

It is important for the industry and for mpü as a company to operate in a way that our business model can continue to function in the future with all its supply chains.

As president of the Qualitätssprachdienste Deutschlands (QSD) and through his involvement in the European umbrella organisation European Union of Associations of Translation Companies (EUATC), the mpü general manager sees with concern that this is unfortunately not the case.

Falling prices, mostly enforced by customers rather than price wars among translation agencies or freelance translators, have created an environment in which many young people are deciding against a career in the language industry. The migration to the technology industry makes the labour shortage in the area of language services even more noticeable.

Without a clear outlook for the future, in which translation prices are adjusted to economic realities, in which a master’s degree in linguistics becomes worthwhile again, we will not be able to cope with the demand of this stable and rapidly growing market. mpü tries to counteract this fact in several ways.

Fair pay for translators

Our translators work in an environment that puts them at the bottom of the food chain. It is our responsibility to ensure that our service providers can continue to make a living from their profession in the future.

For our customers, there is also another, often neglected factor. Because in the end, a
word price is just a unit of time. Translators must use their daily working time as
profitably as possible. So it’s no surprise that a translator paid a 30% lower
word price also allocates a third less time for the translation. We want to give our
translators the time to get to grips with the text and its reference material,
to ensure the best possible result for you.
For this reason, we try to keep word prices of our freelancers at a fair level and cooperate with the Fairwork studies of the DVÜD.

Promoting the profession of a translator and project manager in the translation industry

Many initiatives in recent years have started within the area of the studies of linguistics to get students more excited about the profession. mpü does its utmost to support the universities of Würzburg, Mainz (Germersheim), Heidelberg and Augsburg with internships and the employment of graduates.

But not just in studies. Together with the LIND Group, we help to raise awareness of the profession of a linguist already in the upper grades of schools at a European level.

Women’s quota and promotion

Courses of linguistic studies have a high proportion of women, so it is not
surprising that our team consists almost entirely of female project managers.
To ensure that children and career are easily compatible, we offer our employees completely flexible
models after their parental leave. This way, everyone can determine individually how many working hours per day are satisfying and how many are stressful.