Supporting biodiversity and local communities by offsetting unavoidable carbon emissions

Ingo Weiss, Global MORE GREEN Program Lead

As a family-owned business, we at Boehringer Ingelheim strive to have a positive impact on patients’ health. Since the environment affects the wellbeing of all people, we are actively working to preserve it. In this regard, reducing our carbon emissions is one of our main objectives. However, as a globally operating company with sites all over the world, Boehringer Ingelheim cannot avoid carbon-intensive actions like business flights completely.

Yet, we recognize the potential for improvement. “The restrictions due to Covid-19 showed us that it is possible to do a great deal of work from home,” says Ingo Weiss, lead of MORE GREEN, the environmental sustainability pillar of Boehringer Ingelheim's Sustainable Development-For Generations framework. “We will aim to continue holding most of our meetings by using modern communication technologies.” Yet some things, like audits and networking events, cannot take place entirely online. Therefore, we take action to mitigate our impact and are currently offsetting half of our worldwide carbon emissions caused by business flights in collaboration with ClimateSeed. We aim to accelerate the fight against climate change while protecting valuable natural ecosystems at local and international levels.

Fair work for a healthy planet

ClimateSeed is a Social Business, accredited as such by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Yunus, that offers a wide range of internationally Verified Emissions Reduction projects, including reforestation, water and waste management, in more than 20 countries. All of them are designed to help preserve the planet and are granted one “carbon credit” for each tonne of CO₂ successfully avoided or captured and have other co-benefits linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainable leaders like Boehringer Ingelheim voluntarily support those projects financially by purchasing “carbon credits”, which is a way to finance much-needed climate mitigation action and support the global transition to a zero-carbon future.

Local populations are incentivized to maintain and restore ecosystems. In places like those on a project we support in Kenya, they can receive 70 percent of the profits from the sale of ‘carbon credits’. This income allows local communities to receive a fair salary and benefit from a sound work environment. In many cases, it also allows getting improved access to education and health benefits, which can include training on topics like sexually transmitted diseases, the construction of schools, and access to drinkable water.

Boehringer Ingelheim currently supports seven projects around the world totalling 74.000 tonnes of CO₂e that have been captured or avoided by forestry projects in Kenya, Congo, Brazil and Germany as well as a renewable energy project in India.

Efforts beyond offsets

“Every project we support fulfils three criteria”, explains Ingo Weiss. The project in Kenya provides a good example: the newly planted trees actively help to remove and binding carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, the project is in line with Boehringer Ingelheim’s efforts to foster health in developing countries, and it protects natural water resources. “We aim to look beyond short-term solutions and support regenerative development,” says Weiss.

Boehringer Ingelheim is not only supporting carbon emissions reduction projects but is also taking action itself. “We take responsibility and are dedicated to reducing the carbon emissions at all of our sites worldwide,” says Weiss. And these efforts are paying off: over the past nine years despite business growth, Boehringer Ingelheim reduced its worldwide carbon footprint by 11% through energy-saving measures and low carbon technologies. Further, the switch to more green electricity solutions at many sites started, e.g. Vienna, Sant Cugat and Gainesville, contributes very much to an environmentally sustainable future.