Back to Newsroom

Tuesday, 14 June 2022

"Only One Earth" was the motto of the 50th world environment day on June 5, 2022. This year's focus had accordingly been set on sustainable living with nature. In the viewpoint interview Christiane Rimat, head of the CSR executive department, explains how the msg group is streghtening sustainability within the company, how it lives Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and what it is doing to achieve the goal of climate neutrality. 

Sustainability is on everyone's lips. Which specific goals has the msg group set itself to make its economic activities environmentally sound?

In 2020, we set ourselves the goal of halving our CO₂ emissions by 2025. At that time, this amounted to approx. 17,500 tons CO₂ in Germany (value according to Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Scope 1-3, base year is 2019). We have already achieved this goal early in 2020....

Because of the Corona crisis ...

Yes, that's right. One effect of the pandemic from the end of March 2020 was that the msg group's three main CO₂ emitters - flights, rental and company car trips - reduced significantly at a stroke. Due to the more than two years of contact restrictions, we learned to collaborate even more extensively virtually. As a result of the "new normal" we will continue to hold many internal meetings virtually in the future. The majority of employees will certainly be happy to do without business trips that have now become unnecessary. msg is thus aiming to be climate-neutral by 2030.

That sounds great, at first. But climate neutrality is mostly just window dressing.

In terms of electricity, we had already switched 98.8 percent of our German locations to green energy in 2020. We are working on the remaining 1.2 percent. Here, the energy is included in the rent, which makes the project somewhat more complicated. We have anchored the direct reduction of CO₂ emissions as a strategic corporate goal in our Roadmap 2025 and msg’s mobility strategy. To achieve this goal, we introduced electric and hybrid vehicles as company cars in 2020 and adjusted our car policy 2021, for example. We also offer our employees job bikes, of course. But CSR at msg is more than just achieving climate neutrality.

So what is it all about?

It's about collaborating ecologically, economically and socially. For example, by developing a sustainability guideline for suppliers, which they must actively agree to if they want to work with us. We also tackle any waste of resources, whether it is the responsible use of drinking water, waste avoidance and separation, the use of recycled paper or participation in initiatives such as The Climate Pledge. At msg, ecology goes hand to hand with social responsibility. We support more than 50 non-profit organizations.

So top-down msg management primarily drives msg's sustainability and CSR initiatives?

The entire msg management is committed to sustainability. When it comes to social issues, we rely on decentralization and digitalization. Many initiatives start decentrally at an msg location, driven by one or more employees, such as the current numerous aid programs for refugees from Ukraine. We naturally support this commitment. Our colleagues continuously participate in environmental, aid and fundraising campaigns or even initiate them themselves. We are convinced that economic ventures can only be made more socially and environmentally compatible by working together with all employees from the ground up. At msg, top-down applies as little as bottom-up. We live: Think global – act local.

Christiane Rimat, head of the CSR executive department, msg group