BayWa : From 2030 BayWa AG intends to be climate-neutral throughout the Group

BayWa actively supports the aim of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. The internationally acting trading and service corporation defined an ambitious climate strategy for itself with the target of being climate-neutral across the Group by 2030.

In its sustainability report 2018 published today the corporation announces that it wants to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions from, for example, the electricity and water supply and mobility by 22 percent by 2025 compared to 2017. Also by 2025 the use of energy is to be reduced drastically and the capacity of generation from renewable energy sources expanded by 10 gigawatt. Approx. 10 million households can be supplied with this electricity. Already next year BayWa plans to cover its own electricity requirements one hundred percent from renewable energies.

'The climate strategy is embedded in our sustainability strategy which we have been pursuing for some years', said Klaus Josef Lutz, chairman of BayWa AG. The BayWa commitment was a result of the conviction that the company could only remain successful if it applied global developments to its actions and took responsibility for the impact of its business activity. 'If your business is not sustainable, you might be out of business altogether', Lutz said. In designing its business strategies and models BayWa intends to incorporate a 'green perspective' even more strongly and purposefully in the future. 'We want to find answers to the question of how we can (further) develop our business sustainably and without wasting resources.'

'Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time', said Jessica Paffen, head of Corporate Sustainability at BayWa. 'As a company active in the areas of agriculture, energy and construction, we are particularly affected by climate change and its consequences but can at the same time make an important contribution to limiting the consequences of climate change.'

Since 2014, BayWa has published its Sustainability Report annually, which highlights the commitment of the company for accepting ecological, economic and social responsibility, documents key figures and targets and defines measures with which BayWa steers its sustainability activities. Concrete examples illustrate the commitment in the report. The satellite-aided irrigation solution 'VariableRain', for example, helps farmers to irrigate their fields more efficiently and to prevent weather-related loss of yield and save water. The New Zealand subsidiary T&G Global, for example, relies with its 'green' tomato range 'Beekist' on rain water irrigation and up to 95 percent plastic-free packaging. The BayWa Foundation sponsored 25 long-term education projects globally in 2018 alone. Many of these are related to the sustainability development targets of the United Nations, such as measures on climate protection and Life on land.

The BayWa sustainability report was prepared in compliance with the international reporting standard of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for sustainability reports and meets the requirements of the CSR guideline implementation Act (CSR-RUG). The report is available online as a PDF download: BayWa Sustainability report 2018.

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