Berchtesgadener Land commits a further three years to environment pact
Five years ago, Berchtesgadener Land dairy joined the Bavarian Environment and Climate Pact. Now Thorsten Glauber, Bavarian state Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection, has presented the Piding-based dairy with a new pact for its commitment to sustainability. With this, the co-operative is participating in the climate pact for a further three years and continues to be committed to environmentally friendly and climate protection-relevant economic practices.
Sustainability officer Lisa Weitz explains what this means: “It is not enough to simply comply with the legal requirements with regard to environmental and climate protection. A company must also implement other measures or projects, which serve environmental and climate protection.
“The dairy is working on a variety of measures in very different areas. It starts with the job bike programme for our employees to save carbon, by environmentally friendly mobility on the way to work. It goes on through environmentally friendly packaging, in which the dairy relies on renewable raw materials, to the dairy’s own energy centre, in which the milk is heated with the waste heat, but also heats all the buildings at the company location.
“In addition, there is the sustainable commitment of the 1,800 farmers: Since 2017, everyone has stopped using glyphosate on meadows and arable land. The farms rely on European, GMO-free feed – soy from overseas does not exist in the co-operative.
“Participation in the Bavarian Climate Pact is planned for three years. Since sustainability is anchored in our corporate philosophy, the dairy generally incorporates environmental and climate protection measures across all departments.
“At the moment, the dairy is building a new bottle filling plant in order to be able to offer more returnable glass. Other projects such as the promotion of humus build-up for more carbon storage in the soil or the promotion of environmentally friendly energy use on the farms of the cooperative farmers are already underway.”