News | Gütersloh, 11/29/2017

Successful “Be Green Day” Campaign 2017

This year’s Group-wide “be green Day” campaign has ended. A total of 84 Bertelsmann company sites around the globe participated and organized a day of action for climate and environmental protection. This year's campaign was launched back in April under the heading “Your commitment counts! – Together for more climate and environmental protection.” The next “be green Day” campaign is planned for 2019.

84 Bertelsmann company sites set a new record this year. Never before have so many divisions around the world participated in the Group-wide “be green Day” campaign and organized their own day of action for climate and environmental protection. From Mexico to Singapore, from Estonia to Brazil – Bertelsmann employees in a total of 20 countries learned about environmental topics during their “be green Days” and took part in various activities.

Every contribution counts

The Bertelsmann “be green Day” campaign ended two weeks ago, just as the 23rd World Climate Conference was being held in Bonn. The conference brings together around 25,000 participants from 195 countries to work together on the challenges of global climate protection. Bertelsmann supports the international community's goal of limiting global warming to below two degrees Celsius. The actions within the Group as part of the “be green Day” campaign once again highlighted climate and environmental protection in a variety of ways and have shown that every contribution counts.

“I’d like to thank all employees for their great commitment,” says CHRO Immanuel Hermreck. “The diverse measures are an expression of our employees’ creativity and high level of commitment worldwide. The 'be green' World Map can be an inspiration for other sites to also get involved in climate and environmental protection.”

Diverse activities

This year's campaign was launched back in April under the heading “Your commitment counts! – Together for more climate and environmental protection.” True to the motto that environmental protection should be a daily practice, all companies were first invited to hold a day of action on a date of their choice.

This year, the various divisions focused on topics such as recycling, new mobility concepts, reducing CO2 emissions and saving paper. Activities ranged from tree-planting events, lectures and presentations on the “circular economy” to beach cleanups.

Next “be green Day” campaign starts in 2019

First initiated in 2010 by the “be green” experts, this year saw the sixth “be green Day” being held at many locations. The great response shows that “be green Day” has now become an institution, according to Mark Fabisch, Senior Director at the Corporate Responsibility & Diver-sity Management Department and “be green” coordinator at Bertelsmann. “The new 'be green Day' campaign concept was very well received, so we will continue this action every two years,” he says, adding that the start of the next campaign is planned for April 2019.