Sustainability
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FUTURE
What does sustainability mean for Bayer 04?
Football is of enormous social significance – that was, is and will be the case in the future. For exactly that reason, Bayer 04 have had the target for years of making football sustainable and fit for the future. This happens in three areas: environment, society and club management. Bayer 04 also always gets involved regionally and globally as a locally rooted and internationally famous football club, both inwardly and outwardly. The Werkself thereby accept responsibility in times of sustainability transformation. Bayer 04 want to continue to promote and extend the community influence of football, lead the way as an exemplary enterprise and attractive employer as well as accept ecological challenges to make professional football more environmentally friendly through innovation.
News
Bayer 04 is Wiesdorf: School workshop with Tah on racism
Whether at school, in grassroots sports or at the football stadium – racism and discrimination of all kinds are still prevalent in our society. For this reason, Bayer 04 has been organising preventative school workshops on the subject of racism for many years. This week, one of these workshops took place at the Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium not far from the BayArena as part of the Wiesdorf district matchday - and with a prominent guest: Werkself star Jonathan Tah worked intensively with the pupils on the topic. The German champion and international also spoke about his personal experiences with racism.
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International Women's Day: Stadium announcer Pitti Dahl – the woman with the mic
She was the first female stadium announcer in the Bundesliga and the only one for a long time: Petra 'Pitti' Dahl has been the voice at the BayArena home games since 2009. She was born in Leverkusen and also works in the marketing department at Bayer 04. In an interview with bayer04.de, she talks on this special day about her role as a woman at a football stadium, the relevance of diversity at a football club and the significance of International Women's Day for her.
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District Matchdays: Lomb, Skinnes Hansen and Thiel visit primary school in Bergisch Neukirchen
The primary school pupils won't forget this sports lesson in a hurry. As part of the 'District Matchdays' campaign, a Bayer 04 trio visited GGS Bergisch Neukirchen ahead of the Werkself's home match against Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday (kick-off 18:30 CET). Players Niklas Lomb and Synne Skinnes Hansen along with men's goalkeeping coach David Thiel had a kickabout with the fourth-graders in the school gym on the fourth campaign matchday, which is all about Bergisch Neukirchen.
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Signed jerseys auctioned off to aid palliative care unit
Bayer Vital, Bayer 04 and the Klinikum Leverkusen hospital have joined forces to raise awareness of early prostate cancer detection. Six signed Werkself jerseys were auctioned off in recent weeks, raising an impressive total of €5,390. This donation went to the Verein zur Förderung der Palliativmedizin am Klinikum Leverkusen e.V. as part of the #stellkrebsvomplatz campaign.
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Sustainability in 2023: holistic approach and responsible behaviour
Bayer 04 was not only successful on the pitch in the 2023 calendar year, but the Werkself also continued to develop alongside its sporting endeavours. Starting with the creation of a new staff position for sustainability in the previous year, Leverkusen built on this in 2023 to develop a holistic and future-proof concept for this area. This was brought to life throughout the year with the help of numerous campaigns. Here’s our sustainability review of the year.
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Environment
Professional football has high environmental effects. Bayer 04 look for innovative solutions that are better for the environment and always implements them. The club never wants to stop improving.
Society
Bayer 04 sees its local, regional and international endeavours in the area of community issues as a given as the sport of football is by definition a social event. Bayer 04 also sees itself as a responsible employer off the pitch, a committed neighbour and actor for positive cooperation.
Club management
Bayer 04 is not only one of the biggest football clubs in Germany but also a medium-sized enterprise with commitment to the home city of Leverkusen and Bayer AG. That also involves a high standard in terms of integrity and compliance. The club believes in fair play – both on and off the pitch.
Projects
Bayer 04 has been committed to a large number of successful projects for years in and around Leverkusen as well as worldwide.
Bayer 04-Help-Day
Started as a one-off project in 2015, the 'Bayer 04 HILFT-Tag" day of support is becoming more and more of a traditional event for the Bayer 04 workforce. Every summer a public entity in Leverkusen is given a revamp – very much to the pleasure of all involved.
In cooperation with the City of Leverkusen, the club annually selects a public entity that can be improved in many ways. With the final building work the Bayer 04 staff, the Werkself and the Bayer 04 Women are supported by Lebenshilfe e.V. Leverkusen. The day of action was held at a Leverkusen day nursery in 2015 and 2016. The Opladen driver training course was spruced up in 2017 and in 2018 the players and staff are involved at the Wildpark Reuschenberg. In 2019 it was the turn of the Neuland Park. After a two-year break due to the pandemic, 2022 brought help to the Burgloch allotment society and this year it was the turn of NaturGut Ophoven.
Simply Football
Since 2010, Bayer 04 have been involved with the network partners in supporting the ‘Einfach Fußball’ project initiated by Bayer AG. At over 20 venues in Germany, intellectually challenged young people have the opportunity to regularly take part in their favourite hobby. A team of coaches from Bayer 04 supports the training sessions at SSV Leverkusen-Alkenrath e.V. as well as in the winter months at the "Liga 20" facility. The focus at the sessions is on fun in sport. Individual training content is led by Young Coaches. They are long-term participants of the programme who have been able to complete additional training.
Bayer 04 Learning circle
The ‘Bayer 04 Lernkurve’ (Learning curve) set up in 2001 is a programme aimed at linking the areas of education and sport. The provision has been taken up by countless schools in and around Leverkusen covering all age groups and types of school.
The workshops deal with the issues of the ability to work as a team, nutrition, preventing bullying, media skills, racism and sexism. These courses are offered to classes 1 to 10 but working groups can also be booked on a range of themes.
Werkslöwen Actions
Networking
Bundesliga moving
Football fans in training
Festival of friends
Diabetes camp
