Foundry HEUNISCH sets the course for a CO₂-neutral future through group reorganization

Bad Windsheim, October 2, 2025. The HEUNISCH foundry in Bad Windsheim is restructuring the corporate group and closing one of its two czech plants. Severely outdated production facilities, political pressure and increasingly stringent environmental requirements on-site, the high investment needs for the upcoming decarbonization process, as well as the difficult economic situation left the owner families with no other choice.

Exactly 64 years after the company was founded on October 3, 1961, the last melt will be poured at Slévárna HEUNISCH Brno, s.r.o. The company, specializing in demanding agricultural castings and once part of the traditional Brno tractor manufacturer Zetor, filed for insolvency in 2005 and was taken over by HEUNISCH in 2006. Under the dedicated leadership of Jens Heunisch, the site developed into an efficient foundry operation that expanded the capacities of the Bad Windsheim headquarters.

Like the entire industry, Foundry HEUNISCH faces the enormous challenge of achieving CO₂-neutral production at all sites. In Brno alone, converting the melting operations would have required an investment of €25 million. To comply with the even stricter EU-wide emission limits in force since December 2024, an additional €5 million would have had to be invested in modern filter and wastewater systems within the next four years.

“Amortization within an economically viable timeframe would have been impossible—especially since we are simultaneously investing heavily in climate-neutral, low-emission facilities at our three other HEUNISCH sites. To safeguard the stability of the HEUNISCH Group as a whole, we therefore did not want to shoulder the extraordinarily high investments in Brno at the expense of our other plants.” explain the two managing partners Dr. Christiane Heunisch-Grotz and Christian Gerhäuser.

In addition to the generally difficult economic environment, the lack of political support locally—such as the lack of recognition for multi-million-euro investments in odor-reduction measures—and massive personal threats against the company’s management were also decisive factors in the decision.

“Whether household appliances, engines, ventilation and air conditioning systems, machine parts, or construction components—the German industrial base cannot function without castings,” emphasizes Heunisch-Grotz. The entire European industry is under massive cost pressure from rising energy prices, imports from Asia, and complex regulatory requirements. To avoid dependencies and safeguard know-how, key sectors such as the foundry industry must remain in Germany. HEUNISCH is clearly committed to climate neutrality. The transformation of the remaining three sites towards decarbonization will be successfully advanced in the near future, and CO₂-neutral production processes will be established, explain the two managing directors—but policymakers must create the necessary framework conditions. To ensure that foundries remain competitive, the burdens of excessive bureaucracy, high energy and environmental costs, and sometimes unmanageable environmental regulations must finally be reduced.