BayWa publishes 7th Sustainability Report under the motto "Acting responsibly - Living the change"
20.04.2021
Last year, BayWa AG took a big step towards achieving its goal of Group-wide climate-neutral operations by 2030. As outlined in the international company’s Sustainability Report 2020 published today, it has been covering 100% of its electricity needs from renewable energies as of the end of the year. A second interim target of using 22% less energy by 2025 was achieved ahead of schedule, with the Group’s energy consumption falling by around 34% compared to the base year 2017 and in relation to EBITDA. BayWa was able to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions by more than 13% in the reporting period. Moreover, the company is also increasingly addressing greenhouse gas emissions along the entire value chain. BayWa therefore remains ambitious and has now even been honoured for its efforts. Together with the United Nations, Bloomberg selected BayWa as one of 50 Sustainability & Climate Leaders worldwide for its activities in climate and environmental protection.
In what is now BayWa’s seventh Sustainability Report, examples and performance indicators highlight the extent to which BayWa assumes its corporate responsibility as well as the concrete goals and measures it is implementing to push its commitment in this area. "The Sustainability Report that has just been published underscores our Group-wide stance on these important issues. BayWa has a strong awareness of sustainability,” says Klaus Josef Lutz, BayWa’s Chief Executive Officer. "Achieving the Group-wide target of generating 100 percent of electricity from renewable energies shows that we are acting and living change to address climate change." BayWa has also changed significantly in recent years, says Lutz: “In the process, we entered new business areas many years ago, such as renewable energies. Today, we are able to see from our annual results that our courage to change is paying off. And all of our stakeholders benefit from this development. Both BayWa’s customers, business partners, employees and shareholders, as well as society on the whole, as it has developed a much stronger awareness for the topic of sustainability and increasingly demands it from companies.”
BayWa has aligned its sustainability goals with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is currently contributing to ten out of 17 SDGs through its strategy. Innovations such as the AgriPV parks in the Netherlands, which combine the use of solar modules with the cultivation of berries, meet the demands for affordable clean energy and climate protection measures as well as sustainable food production. BayWa subsidiary Cefetra B.V., the main supplier of soya meal for the European feedstuff industry, had already developed the Certified Responsible Soya (CRS) standard in 2008 and began calculating the greenhouse gas emissions of CRS-certified soya farms and comparing them with non-certified farms in 2020. The objective is to reduce emissions along the entire value chain, with an additional focus being placed on increased transparency along the supply chain and improved traceability of goods. In 2020, Cefetra traded a total of approximately 2.2 million tonnes of soya, with 1.1 million tonnes thereof certified according to the CRS, RTRS or ProTerra sustainability standards.
Another chapter in the Sustainability Report is dedicated to BayWa’s corporate social responsibility activities. In the reporting year, the company once again provided numerous training positions, thereby continuing to offer young people a perspective despite the coronavirus pandemic. Across the Group, there were 1,411 apprentices, 927 of them at BayWa AG. The BayWa Foundation, which has been committed to sustainable education projects in the areas of healthy nutrition and renewable energies for more than 20 years now, provided emergency services, senior citizens in need and homeless shelters with free food during the coronavirus pandemic. Above the rooftops of Munich, the Bellevue di Monaco sports court was built with the support of BayWa’s Building Materials business unit, where children, teenagers and young adults from the local area can come to play sport free of charge.