Sustainability
and responsibility
The use of robots touches on numerous sensitive issues such as data security, the use of scarce resources, compliance with climate policy objectives and, above all, the coexistence of man and machine. URG is committed to maintaining high standards in all legal rules such as the Supply Chain Act or the EU Corporate Responsibility Directive Act. This is despite the fact that URG has not yet reached the relevant thresholds that would oblige it to do so.
Environment and supply chains
Many different materials and inputs are needed to produce robots. Two groups are particularly important: plastics for the housing and metal, precious metals and rare earths for the electronics. In research and development, URG focuses on a simple design of its machines, i.e. on a design that saves as much raw material as possible. At the same time, the end of the life cycle is already taken into account during the design phase: parts of the machines should be reusable or easy to recycle. In purchasing, recycled materials are preferred. It is important to comply with high social and environmental standards in the global supply chains, as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The aim is to strengthen human rights and prevent human rights violations.
Employee concerns

Data protection and data security
Robots, just like our everyday objects, are equipped with cameras and sensors to understand people’s speech and images of their surroundings. They therefore collect and generate volumes of data when in use. URG strictly adheres to the requirements that follow from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the German implementation law. But technology often develops faster than regulation. Artificial intelligence, for example, makes decisions that affect the interests of robot users and are only partially addressed in the relevant legal texts. That is why URG attaches importance to respecting the rights of all those affected to their data and to their self-determination as a matter of course, even where legal regulations do not yet exist. Together with the users of the robots and those who deal with these products as their customers, we strive to penetrate new questions and solve them in the spirit ofthe philosophy of our data protection regulations.
