Nature Conservation
Our environmental-protection efforts to conserve resources and reinstate habitat help maintain the balance of species. Burghausen’s Site Planning unit develops strategies for limiting land use. We have implemented a site development plan that contains a renaturation proposal and ensures that we also use spaces between buildings and old factories. We carefully assess the impact that site expansions may have on nature and biodiversity and – in consultation with the authorities – implement environmental mitigation programs to offset these impacts.
Covering 232 hectares (about the same size as Munich’s historic downtown district), our Burghausen plant borders an EU Habitats Directive site along the Salzach river. To check whether the operation of our facilities has any effect on this nature reserve, we regularly monitor our air pollution levels (especially nitrogen oxide emissions, NOx). In this regard, we had an external consultant compile an environmental-exposure register for the site. For the period under review, the results again show that operation of our plant does not impact the preservation and development goals of the reserve near the site.
We are cooperating with the Bavarian State Agency for the Environment in monitoring the appearance of the protected Aesculapian snake on our Burghausen site premises. Aesculapian snakes have only been sighted at five locations in Germany, one of which is the Salzach region near Burghausen.
In 2019, WACKER began working with the Landschaftspflegeverband Altötting (Altötting Landscape Conservation Association) in a community project to promote biodiversity at the Burghausen site. An area of 30,000 square meters along a one-and-a-half-kilometer stretch of the Alz canal between Burgkirchen and Hirten was restored into a habitat where flowers and insects can thrive. At the Burghausen site, land areas totaling over 2,300 square meters have been turned into flourishing meadows as a nourishing habitat for insects.
Natural Alz
WACKER and seven other ChemDelta Bavaria companies have joined forces within the Verein Naturnahe Alz (Natural Alz Association; German-language website only), an organization supporting the Bavarian authorities in renaturalizing the Alz river and enhancing its ecosystem in the long term.
Wildlife Conservation: Projects in the USA
Employees at our US site in Adrian, Michigan, are doing their part to protect nature and biodiversity. In one example, a team has set up nesting boxes for bluebirds, which are native to the region, and maintains a 2.0-km nature trail. The 97-hectare site also features native wildflower and butterfly gardens.