Gütersloh, 09/27/2024

Central Training Department Sends A Signal For More Sustainability And Climate Awareness

Apprentices from the Bertelsmann vocational college with Klaus Röttger, Senior Vice President Corporate Education at Bertelsmann and Head of Central Training

Subject: Environment
Country: Germany
Category: Project

The Central Training department at Bertelsmann’s Corporate Center wants to focus even more strongly on climate protection and sustainability in the future. The integration of the topic in the curriculum and participation in various events – such as “World Cleanup Day”  recently – also serve this aim.

At the beginning of 2020, Bertelsmann set itself the target to become climate-neutral by 2030. Since then, all corporate divisions have taken diverse a wide range of steps towards achieving this climate target. The Central Training department at Bertelsmann’s Corporate Center in Gütersloh also makes a contribution by focusing even more strongly on climate protection and sustainability as part of the training curriculum and by initiating its own campaigns. One example was the participation in “World Cleanup Day” on September 20: People around the world were called upon to collect trash from streets, squares, waters, or natural areas in their community. Trainees and students of Bertelsmann took part and collected around 40 kilograms of waste in the vicinity of the Corporate Center.

“Sustainability and climate awareness are particularly important topics for the education of young people. Especially in light of the fact that these are clearly the focus of the younger generation,” says Klaus Röttger, Senior Vice President Corporate Education at Bertelsmann and Head of Central Training. “We therefore want to deal with it more strongly together with our trainees and implement measures. The integration of the topic “health” in the curriculum nine years ago – by the way, the first vocational college in German to do so – has been a very good experience for us. I am certain that we will now succeed in achieving an equally enduring impact with the topic of sustainability.”

According to Klaus Röttger, this integration will take place at three levels: First, various measures will be taken to strengthen the awareness of sustainability and environmental protection with the young people. Similar to the health subject, content related to sustainability and climate awareness will be integrated in the lessons. Second, hands-on activities will help to promote climate protection in everyday life. They will take place at the Corporate Center or on its grounds; for example, setting up bee or insect “hotels” could be one activity, according to Röttger. And third, various sustainability events will be organized for trainees to attend.

“Trash collection campaign is a good start”

One example of such an event is “World Cleanup Day”, which was under the motto “The world is cleaning up. Germany takes part. – Together for a clean, healthy, and plastic waste-free future”. Trainees and students gathered in the morning of September 20 outside the Corporate Center to collect (plastic) waste together for several hours in the area. You can find more about this campaign on Bertelsmann’s social media channels. Collecting waste was met with positive feedback from both passers-by as well as the participating trainees and students. “This campaign absolutely promotes the development of more mindfulness for nature,” said trainee Eva Himmeldirk.

In order to illustrate the commonality in the implementation of the topic, it was self-understood for Klaus Röttger to actively participate in the waste collection campaign. He also emphasized that, of course, great importance has long been attached to making lessons as sustainable as possible. For example, all teaching content is offered digitally, and the general recommendation is to avoid paper wherever possible. Similarly, educational activities such as school trips are always checked to see how they can be organized in the most climate-conscious way.

“World Cleanup Day” is a global citizens’ movement to clean up pollution. It mobilizes millions of people in over 190 countries every year. According to the organizers, around 631,300 people in over 2,400 municipalities in Germany alone took part this year, almost 200,000 more than in 2023. Together, they were able to remove 2,146 tons of waste from the environment, 225 tons more than last year. The trash was then transported away by municipal waste disposal companies. Incidentally, “World Cleanup Day” has also been included in the United Nations’ official calendar of international days and weeks since this year, which should ensure even greater attention and participation worldwide in the future.