Romaco receives support from animal workers. Just in time for the winter break, three bee colonies are moving in at the pharmaceutical machine manufacturer. At the locations of Romaco Pharmatechnik in Karlsruhe, Romaco Kilian in Cologne and Romaco Innojet in Steinen, up to 150,000 bees will be settled in the summer months. The beehives are housed on fallow meadows on the factory premises and are therefore in the immediate vicinity of the Romaco workforce.
For this nature conservation project, Romaco has entered into a cooperation with beefuture GmbH from Weißenhorn. The Swabian company has been campaigning for the continued existence of honey bees since 2015 and arranges bee sponsorships with communities, authorities, private individuals and partner companies in Germany and Central Europe. Beefuture takes care of the species-appropriate care of the bees - including all beekeeping work and official registrations.
"The cooperation with beefuture enables us to make a contribution to saving the domestic bee populations even without special specialist knowledge", emphasizes Andreas Detmers, sustainability officer of the Romaco Group. "The bee project is a good example of how a company can work sustainably for the preservation of natural habitats with little effort and thereby gain a new product with honey."
The first Romaco honey is to be harvested at the end of July 2021. The hand-made natural product is then distributed to customers and employees. For a jar of honey, bees fly an average of 150,000 kilometers and pollinate around five million flowers while searching for food. Around 80 percent of domestic flowering plants are dependent on pollination by insects, including agricultural commodities such as apples, pears and pumpkins. Nevertheless, the number of insects worldwide has been declining for decades and biodiversity is also dwindling. In Germany, the total mass of insects living on land in some habitats has decreased by well over 60 percent in the last decade.
"We have also recorded a decline in bee populations in Germany of over 60 percent since the 1960s," explains beefuture founder Frank Weiß. “A dramatic development with worrying effects on our ecosystem and the global food chain.” The causes of bee deaths are agricultural monocultures, pesticides, diseases and climatic changes. "By keeping bees, we are actively committed to the continued existence of endangered livestock," reports Andreas Detmers. "For Romaco, the bee initiative means another small step towards more corporate sustainability."
Romaco Group's sustainability strategy
At the beginning of October this year, the management of the Romaco Group adopted its own sustainability strategy and defined climate targets for the period up to 2030. The manufacturer of pharmaceutical machines is already able to supply its customers with climate-neutral tablet presses, blister lines and cartoners. For this purpose, the CO2 emissions that are released during the construction of the machines are offset by funding a climate protection project. By 2030, the energy consumption of all Romaco machines is to be reduced by up to 30 percent. There are also plans to increase the proportion of components that can be recycled or are already made from recycled material to 70 percent. When it comes to implementing its sustainability goals, Romaco follows the principle of "avoiding before reducing before compensating".
