Sonja Bettel
"In the meantime, CSR has become part of the corporate philosophy of many companies and has also reached medium-sized companies."
Peter Kromminga, UPJ
The listed energy supply company RWE AG mines coal in the Rhenish lignite mining area in order to generate electricity from it. Mining is carried out on huge areas in the open-cast mine, leaving deep-lying lunar landscapes. RWE is criticized for being responsible for lowering the groundwater and for damage to the mountains. Localities and nature were destroyed by the excavation.
RWE & battle for Hambach forest
The one between Cologne and Aachen Hambacher Forst should be cut down in September 2018. The forest, which measures two square kilometers, is a remnant of the originally 40 square kilometers of bourgeois forest, which has been cleared for the Hambach opencast mine since 1978. Now the last remnant of forest is at its roots, against which activists have protested for six years by building tree houses and living in the forest. On August 1, 2018, RWE Power submitted an application to the regulatory authorities and the police to "clear the Hambacher Forst, which is owned by RWE," of illegal occupations and uses ". RWE justified its adherence to the clearing with responsibility towards the employees and the security of the electricity supply.
On October 6, the Higher Administrative Court in Münster ordered a preliminary grubbing-up stop in the Hambacher Forest and thus complies with the application by the German Federal Government for the Environment and Nature Conservation. The BUND had argued that the forest is inhabited by endangered bats and must therefore be protected as a European FFH conservation area.
The battle for the Hambacher Forest is not just about trees and endangered bats. The main question is whether, given climate change and the rapid loss of nature and biodiversity, it is still responsible to mine lignite in the open-cast mine and to generate electricity from it. Coal emits significantly more carbon dioxide than petroleum or natural gas per kilowatt hour of electricity generated and thus makes a disproportionate contribution to climate change. RWE's CO2 emissions in 2013 were more than 163 million tons, making the group the largest emitter of CO2 in Europe. The combustion of coal also emits sulfur dioxide, heavy metals, radioactive substances and fine dust.
From the mid-1970s, RWE also relied on nuclear energy and sued the federal state of Hesse and the German federal government for damages after the decision to phase out in 2011. Why hasn't RWE left brown coal long ago and switched to renewable energies? A RWE spokesman writes to us: “It is not possible to get out of nuclear energy and coal-based electricity at the same time. For this reason, the use of coal to generate electricity is a necessity for the energy industry, which has been repeatedly confirmed by a broad political majority. ”By 2030, RWE will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 50 percent compared to 2015. The transaction between RWE and E.ON has made RWE the third largest producer of renewable energies in Europe. And the open pit? The RWE spokesman said that more than 22.000 hectares have already been recultivated in the Rheinische Revier, of which 8.000 hectares are forest.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Public criticism due to a lack of corporate responsibility is aimed primarily at international groups. Is it because these companies are more visible than smaller ones? That they are considered threatening giants? Or because they don't have to worry about public opinion because of their economic power? It would be very different.
Peter Kromminga, managing director of CSR network UPJ based in Berlin, sees hardly any differences between large and medium-sized companies when it comes to corporate responsibility, technical term CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility): "CSR has meanwhile become part of the corporate philosophy of many companies and has also reached small and medium-sized companies, not just those big ones. ”With smaller companies, the value of the owners is an important factor for the commitment. "Public pressure is increasingly an important factor for larger companies, but regulations also play a role, such as the CSR reporting requirements for listed companies in the European Union."
Nestlé & the Investor Factor
A group that claims to do a lot for society, but is still being heavily criticized, is the food giant Nestlé with its headquarters in Switzerland. Nestlé has been accused of destroying rainforest for the extraction of palm oil, exploiting water resources, animal testing or poor quality baby food.
“We are convinced that we will only be successful in the long term if we create added value for our shareholders and for society at the same time. This approach of creating shared value shapes everything we do and thus enables us to implement our corporate sense: improve the quality of life and contribute to a healthier future, ”Nestlé wrote in the 2017 report on his social responsibility. Examples include: More than 1000 new nutrient-rich products launched, 57 percent of the volume of the twelve most important raw material categories and paper sourced responsibly, 431.000 farmers trained, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, waste and water consumption, and around a quarter of the electricity comes from renewable sources ,
Nestlé also strive to reduce plastic waste by switching to refillable or recyclable packaging, better information on correct disposal and support the development of systems for the collection, sorting and recycling of packaging. All packaging should be reusable or recyclable by 2025. In theory, you can argue, they are already. It is a fact, however, that today's lifestyle, in which food and drinks are consumed quickly and on-the-go, produces an enormous amount of waste. A drink in a PET bottle or aluminum can is drunk in a few minutes, a burger, pasta dish or snack will soon be consumed. What remains is packaging, which often ends up somewhere in the landscape.
The big polluters
Greenpeace and other environmental organizations have worked in 42 countries worldwide in the past few months Plastic waste collected in cities, parks and beaches and sorted the 187.000 pieces by brand name. The majority of the plastic came from Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé, followed by Danone and Mondelez - the companies that dominate the food market.
It seems particularly absurd that valuable mineral water is filled into plastic bottles and transported all over the world. A large Nestlé bottling plant is located in the traditional spa town of Vittel in the French Vosges. Nestlé has had a water right there since the late 1960s and is allowed to extract one million cubic meters per year. A local cheese factory pumps out 600.000 cubic meters a year. Since the 1990s, however, the groundwater level has dropped by around 30 centimeters a year. In an interview for ARD, Jean-Francois Fleck, president of the environmental association VNE, accused Nestlé of not protecting water, but exploiting it. The local citizens' initiative "Eau 88" protests against the exploitation of their water and has set up a "gateway to the desert" made of straw bales on the outskirts.
Now a line is to be built for 20 million euros, which brings excess water from a neighboring community to Vittel. The Mayor of Vittel told ARD that Nestlé could not be prevented from drawing water because 20.000 jobs would be directly and indirectly dependent on water bottling.
The Nestlé company reports that the water supply is not acutely endangered and that it has voluntarily reduced the extraction to 750.000 cubic meters per year because it itself has an interest in the sustainability of the source. Legal experts now have to decide whether industry can continue to use as much water as before, whether the permits were once legal and whether the exploitation of groundwater is compatible with the EU Water Framework Directive.
It is also very different
In fact, many companies claim that they would act sustainably and responsibly. However, it is often difficult for consumers to assess whether their information is correct and whether you can believe it or not. The so-called “green washing” is also the subject of Werner Boot's new film “The Green Lie”, in which the author Kathrin Hartmann explains about “green lies” of corporations, for example about palm oil. Nestlé, for example, says they are increasingly switching to “sustainably” produced palm oil. Environmentalists say there is no sustainable palm oil, at least not on an industrial scale.
“There are a lot of things that I don't think are fair about how people run out there. We want to be a solution. "
Johannes Gutmann, Sun Gate
Margarine without palm oil
For sonnentor from Sprögnitz in Lower Austria therefore looked for and found alternatives for their cookies: The small company Naschwerk in the Waldviertel has developed its own margarine in order to be able to bake vegan cookies without palm oil for Sonnentor.
Johannes Gutmann, founder and managing director of Sonnentor, started organic and sold herbs at farmers' markets 30 years ago. Today, 400 employees and 300 contract farmers produce around 900 products in his family business - from spices and teas to sweets. Sonnentor is committed to organic and sustainability, fair working conditions and fair trade and is a pioneer in the common good economy. Gutmann says he acts according to the principle: whoever moves, moves others. Gutmann: “There are a lot of things that I don’t think are fair about how people work out there. We want to be a solution. ”As long as he doesn't take in greedy investors, he can act in this way and also grow consciously. That is also a good recipe against personal burnout.
Chocolatier and organic farmer Josef Zotter from Riegersburg in Styria sees things similarly. In 1987, the trained chef and waiter founded a pastry shop in Graz with his wife Ulrike, created unusual cake creations and developed hand-made chocolate. In 1996 he had to file for bankruptcy, and three years later he reinvented himself as a chocolate manufacturer. For his organic chocolates, he now buys cocoa beans directly from farmers in Latin America at fair prices and has already received many prices for his high quality and always new ideas. Zotter currently has 210 employees, and his two adult children also work for the company. "We are a completely normal family business, which has a so-called family constitution, according to which we act," he says. The decisive factor for his consequent corporate responsibility was probably his bankruptcy, he retrospectively analyzes: “A bankruptcy leads to two possible consequences: Either you adapt to the conditions of all economic laws or you do your thing fully because you can't lose anything more , Most adapt to the principles of a market economy. I did not want."
"By listing chemical products, we may have angered some customers, but we also won new customers."
Isabella Hollerer, Bellaflora
Gardening industry turned inside out
What is striking about such companies is that they also take risks for their convictions. The Company bellaflora Based in Leonding in Upper Austria, for example, plant chemistry was banned from its garden centers in 2013, the range was switched to natural fertilizers in 2014 and the use of peat has been reduced since 2015. Jobs for people with special needs, solar power from our own production and economical use of water and waste are almost a matter of course. Such a commitment is of course risky, says Isabella Hollerer, who is responsible for sustainable development at Bellaflora: "By listing the chemical products, we may have angered some customers, but also won new customers." However, the employees first had to be trained and be enthusiastic about the sustainable path. Any change in habits is difficult, but now everyone is proud of it, says the sustainability officer. An alternative economy stands for it.
Photo / Video: Shutterstock.
