Measures at the Berlin corporate headquarters

Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals has identified potential savings at its production sites worldwide with the aim of using less energy and generating energy more efficiently.

An Energy-Saving Forum coordinates our climate-protection activities at our headquarters in Berlin.

Energy-Saving Forum

According to current estimates, we can save about 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year in Berlin with these measures. Potential savings can be made in the following areas: production plants, buildings (including building services), on-site energy generation, and the vehicle fleet.

Production plants
We have integrated energy-saving components into existing plants, modernized building–services engineering, and optimized plant operation modes. In this way we have reduced energy consumption in the Berlin production plants.

Building services
In the field of building–services engineering, our modernization and refurbishment measures have improved heat insulation, achieved an effective level of heat recovery, and reduced the amount of energy consumed by air-conditioning systems.

Energy center
Our specific fuel consumption and the resulting CO₂ emissions are extremely low.

Since the early nineteen-seventies, we have been running our own power plant in Berlin based on the principle of heat-power-cooling cogeneration, which makes it possible to combine the production of steam and hot water (heat), electricity (power), and cold water for the air-conditioning system (cold). The efficiency of the power plant is about twice that of conventional electricity-generating power plants. This is achieved by the consistent use of accumulated thermal energy in an on-site heating-cooling network. In winter, the heat is used to keep the buildings warm; in summer, the energy is used to cool production processes and buildings.

Electricity generated by the power plant covers about 50 percent of the Berlin location's needs. The on-site, central generation of heating, cooling and electrical energies gives us short, energy-saving distribution routes and enables us to use highly efficient technologies. For example, we use compression refrigerators which are more than twice as efficient as normal, small machines. All the residual heat and cold from processes and buildings is re-used wherever possible. For example, an ongoing project is looking into the use of evaporation cold produced in the extraction of liquid nitrogen.

The vehicle fleet
Our first natural-gas-powered vehicle will go into service in Berlin at the end of 2009. Other vehicles in our fleet will be successively replaced by vehicles with low CO₂ emissions. This project also includes company cars.

Our aim is to reduce the fleet's CO₂ emissions by 20 percent by 2012.

The staff campaign

We encourage our staff to help us improve our energy balance. The company promotes energy-conscious behavior.
We are planning to run a second staff campaign in mid-2009 on the topic of climate protection. Under the motto "Ideas Full of Energy – Energy Full of Ideas," committed members of staff can help reduce energy consumption.
The aim of energy-saving behavior at the workplace is to reduce CO₂ emissions.

The Berlin Climate Alliance

Bayer is a founding member of the Berlin Climate Alliance, an initiative launched on October 9, 2008. The Climate Alliance demonstrates the partnership-based commitment of the Berlin Senate (city government) and industry. Activities combating climate change are to be implemented at a local level. The aim is to cut CO₂ emissions by 25 percent by 2010 (compared to the reference year 1990).

Bayer's climate-protection activities in Berlin are supplemented by two further measures. The Bayer MaterialScience subgroup is contributing its expertise in the field of high-quality materials to the Berlin housing industry's Round Table. The main focus here is on heat insulation in existing residential and public buildings in Berlin.

"Parasites - Global Players" - an international traveling exhibition

The international traveling exhibition entitled "Parasites – Global Players," which we are preparing in collaboration with the Natural History Museum in Berlin, will inform the general public about parasites and the growing danger of their proliferation as a result of climate change. The exhibition will open in 2010.

The Bayer Climate Award

In addition to its own research efforts, Bayer also promotes external scientific innovation with the "Bayer Climate Award". In March 2009, the Bayer Science & Education Foundation awarded this international prize to Professor Emeritus Dr. Eberhard Jochem, an energy-efficiency expert at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) in Karlsruhe.

Professor Dr. Jochem has proved that raising energy efficiency is the key tool for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in many areas of our industrial society. By 2020, CO₂ emissions could be cut in an economically profitable way by 15 percent in Germany alone by improving energy efficiency.

Furthermore, the Foundation's "Bayer Climate Fellows" scholarship program will provide financial support of up to €5000 to enable high-school students active in climate protection to attend seminars abroad on the topic.

More information about the Bayer Climate Award