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Business and Biodiversity: BIONADE

BIONADE

Commitment

BIONADE. A beverage company. Non-alcoholic refreshment. What more could you want, right? It doesn’t stop here though - this ecological power house knows how to come through on its commitment to biodiversity.

Right from the onset in the 1980s, when the product BIONADE was invented, the company has made sustainable thinking and acting its guideline. With a non-alcoholic refreshment drink produced purely organically – featuring eco-quality according to the EU Eco-regulation, BIONADE is striving for a pioneering role. BIONADE sees itself as an inspiration for other regions as it is a local company that is expanding internationally, but is still connected to its roots and is located right in the middle of the Rhön Biosphere Reserve.

The goals to be achieved with the Leadership Declaration of the ‘Biodiversity in Good Company’ Initiative are fully in tune with BIONADE’s general goals and claims. In the future, the company wants to be able to conduct all business transactions bearing in mind biological diversity. These goals are turning into a permanent development process. Through an environmental management system, BIONADE can ensure environmental and quality standards are met, while at the same time continuously improving our industrial production process.

BIONADE is aligning the entire supply chain towards sustainable development by including procurement, production and logistics in the process. The raw materials necessary for production of BIONADE's refreshment drink are being procured from regional organic farmers to an ever greater extent, and likewise the global procurement of raw materials is steadily improving. Suppliers are given specifications of social and ecological criteria, and taking these conditions into account the beverage company will build up its supplier pool with long-term contracts. Educational work with a focus on sustainable development is practiced at BIONADE, both in-house and externally, and is being continually expanded.

Benefit

What does it mean in real terms that BIONADE is protecting biodiversity? How does the consumer benefit? How is the environment benefiting? And what is BIONADE doing to make sure its ideas will be passed on to the generations to come? 

“Bio-Landbau Rhön”, as well as numerous other social and ecological projects undertaken by BIONADE, show in practice how benefits evolve through a long-term commitment to both biological diversity and society, while concurrently making sustainable use of biological diversity. 

The “Rhön Organic Farming” project, for instance, pushes organic farming, thus avoiding the utilisation of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and their seeping into the soil and groundwater. This in turn improves the drinking water in the immediate surroundings, the Rhön. In addition, regional procurement provides local farmers with new opportunities of marketing; long routes of transport are avoided; and traditional native species are protected and supported.

BIONADE does not only feel strongly about acting with ecological awareness by itself, it is also interested in supporting ecological education and passing this understanding for sustainable development on to others. Only by conveying the importance of protecting nature and the environment, biodiversity can be permantently preserved. For example, through the “Vielfalt2030” initiative, customers, employees and business partners can find out more about the preservation of biological diversity and also contribute to its protection.

FactBox BIONADE GmbH

Headquarters
Ostheim/Rhön, Germany

Major products
Non-alcoholic refreshment beverages

Global turnover
not specified

Global employees 2014
100

Picture gallery

Pictures on BIONADE's Biodiversity Strategy. Click to enlarge.