Dr. Attila Molnar Member of the Board of Management at Bayer AG responsible for environmental protection and safety

100 years ago one of the first industrial environmental protection institutions was set up at Bayer. Do you look back on this achievement with pride?

Obviously we are proud of our long tradition as pioneers in environmental protection. And we also continued in the decades that followed to set new milestones, time and time again - with forward-looking, technological developments, some of which have now become standard practice worldwide. At the outset, our environmental protection efforts focused on developing concepts with which we could avoid unwanted effects on humankind and the environment, or at least minimize the impact by taking action at the end of the production chain to remove pollutants from the air and wastewater and to dispose of waste properly. We have spent more than € 12.5 billion over the last ten years on the construction and operation of the necessary plants, and further investment to the tune of € 6 billion has been earmarked for the next five years. This equates to daily spending of some € 3.5 million on the construction and operation of environmental protection facilities around the world. It would barely be possible, if at all, to make further improvement to this type of end-of-pipe environmental protection without sacrificing the level of economic efficiency needed to make our operations viable.

So how do you aim to make further progress?

For some time now we have been turning our attention to what we call in-process environmental protection. We are focusing on the production processes themselves, incorporating environmental protection and safety aspects into these from the outset. Our researchers and process engineers have been given the clear task of developing production processes that minimize production of unwanted secondary products or, ideally, eradicate by-products altogether. And in cases where production of such materials in certain processes is unavoidable these should, wherever possible, be recycled. This strategy has already proved successful. Although the volume of products for sale has grown by more than half as much again since 1990, we have been able to reduce key parameters in the area of emissions, while at the same time increasing resource productivity.

Nonetheless, industrial environmental protection is just one aspect of our wider efforts to improve the environment. There's a lot more to it than that.

What exactly?

Today, when we talk about environmental protection we are doing so in a socio-economic context, which can justifiably be described as the model for the 21st century. The watchword is sustainable development. There are many different means of bringing this demanding model to life. The means which we are pursuing, in consensus with the chemical industry around the world, is Responsible Care. This is a voluntary commitment on the part of industry to continuous improvement in the fields of safety, health and environmental protection, in some cases going well beyond the legislative requirements.

Does that then mean that in the past companies acted irresponsibly?

Of course not. But now we have defined our objectives more clearly and made our activity in this area even more transparent and accessible to the general public, for example by publicizing our emissions data and setting targets against which we allow ourselves to be judged. For it is our responsibility to ensure that our economic activity is sustainable and that we can achieve a high return from our products. It is also our responsibility to ensure that the production of our products involves the use of as few natural resources as possible, and that our products have the minimum impact on the environment. And we have a social responsibility towards our employees, neighbors, shareholders and stakeholders, and so ultimately towards vast sections of society.

Talking of society, how do you live up to your responsibility to the public in practice?

Firstly, by producing environmentally friendly products that bring as many benefits as possible. Secondly, by playing an active role in shaping the future of our company. This includes, for example, our active involvement in the United Nations' Global Compact initiative designed to achieve sustainable development, ensure observance of human rights and also improve working conditions and social standards in every country of the world.

Our social responsibility also encompasses our role in providing policymakers with advice in our particular areas of expertise. Recently, for example, we presented our views to the European Chemical Industry Association on changes to European chemical legislation and submitted proposals of our own. The white paper on chemical policy confirmed in June at the council meeting of EU environment ministers did indeed incorporate some aspects of our suggestions, although a large number of our ideas went unheeded. If the law were to be adopted as it currently stands, it would be up to us to prove that many chemicals that have been used for many years without problem are indeed safe. This would create an expensive, excessively bureaucratic system which would produce data graveyards and would in the end not even achieve its aim of improving the safety of consumers. The high cost entailed in the necessary tests, for us in particular as a company with a high number of specialty and base chemicals in our product range, would represent a significant competitive disadvantage.

It is naturally also in our interest for substances with an incalculable risk to be withdrawn from the market. This is why we also stick by the resolution adopted in Stockholm in May 2001 to ban the use of twelve chemicals on a worldwide basis. Bayer produced only one of these substance groups, PCB or polychlorinated biphenyls, and we had already ceased production voluntarily back in 1983. Today we provide assistance in the proper disposal of such chemicals to companies that have been using PCB.

Can you give us other examples?

Many years ago we stopped the practice that was customary at the time of disposing of spent acid at sea, long before this was outlawed by legislation. We are currently working hard to reduce our CO₂ emissions. Not only are we going to reduce these values to well below those specified by the policymakers we shall also achieve these targets ten years ahead of time. This is what we understand Responsible Care to be all about.

We are also involved in socio-political activities. One particularly outstanding example is the "Making Science Make Sense" initiative launched by our American subsidiary, Bayer Corporation. The aim of this initiative is to promote science among children. Bayer Corporation was awarded the 2000 President's Service Award by the American President in recognition of this example of social commitment.

And so the circle is complete. I mentioned at the start that nowadays environmental protection must be considered in a wider socio-economic context. And that's why sustainable economic activity combined with responsible economic, ecological and social action is indeed the model to which we must adhere in this, the 21st century.