Nature Conservation

We promote biodiversity through our environmental protection efforts to conserve resources and restore habitats. We also devise strategies to limit land use. We have implemented a site development plan containing a renaturation proposal so as to ensure that we also make use of open spaces, vacant lots and old plants. 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, 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 (e.g. nitrogen oxide emissions, NO_x). 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 presence 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.

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. Suitable land areas within our sites have likewise been turned into flourishing meadows as a nourishing habitat for insects. For example, additional land totaling some 3,000 square meters at the Nünchritz site was designated as flourishing meadows in the reporting year.