Sustainability: more than environmental and climate protection
Dear readers,
The topic of sustainability – including issues such as energy consumption, reduced amounts of waste productions or the recycling of materials - is not only a key issue all over the industries, but is also of immense importance to publishers, including Bauverlag. At the company’s internal B.connect event on 22.08.2024, Bauverlag Managing Partner Michael Voss gave a keynote speech on the “great challenge of our time”.
According to Voss, publishers have a special responsibility and position within society: on the one hand, they convey information, attitudes and values to the outside world and thus influence public debates - on the other hand, they are companies that are subject to market economy principles and regulations. For publishers, this results in the dualism of being committed to social education, but also to the responsibility of converting their own business activities to sustainability.
So how is this goal to be achieved? According to the Bauverlag Managing Partner, topics such as the reduction of CO2 emissions, energy efficiency, resource consumption and recycling must be addressed, but human rights, working conditions and responsible corporate governance must also be taken into account, because “sustainability is more than just environmental and climate protection”. Here, Voss focuses on the holistic, three-dimensional ESG approach - “Environment”, “Social” and “Governance”. These three points summarize the following aspects:
Environment: environmental aspects; topics such as energy consumption, reduction of waste production and emissions by switching to recycled film
Social: Social criteria such as human rights, working conditions, social commitment and diversity
Governance: topics relating to responsible corporate management such as transparency and compliance
According to Michael Voss, many measures from the ESG dimensions have already been implemented at Bauverlag over the past 5 years, but this is more of an “accumulation of random individual measures”. The development and implementation of a concrete sustainability strategy is planned for Bauverlag’s future path to sustainability: The first steps for this are the definition of a “Green Circle” to develop the sustainability strategy in Q3/2024, the completion of a sustainability strategy by Q1/2025, regular reporting on the progress of the strategy and last but not least: transparency. In future, you, dear readers, will also find the Bauverlag sustainability report in the company portrait on our Bauverlag homepage and on our social media channels. We look forward to working with you on the road to sustainability.
Have fun with issue 6/2024 of recovery,
Lukas Höpfner
