Bayer hosts environmental visit

Bayer has been playing host to a party of international students to help them learn more about environmental protection and sustainable development in the pharmaceutical industry.

Some 50 young environmental envoys from 18 countries across the world are part way through a week at the company’s headquarters in Germany.

They were selected from 1,200 applicants via environmental projects they presented in competitions organised by Bayer in their home countries.

Altogether 8,000 potential envoys have applied for a place on the program and nearly 400 have been invited to visit Bayer.

Dr Wolfgang Plischke, the member of Bayer’s board of management responsible for innovation, technology and environment, said: “The visit gives the young people a wide range of options for expanding their environmental knowledge and making contacts with like-minded contemporaries from all over the world.”

He went on to say the programme had prompted the formation of a network of young environmental protection activists who intend to tackle global environmental challenges “armed with sound expert knowledge”.

Bayer is the first company in the world to enter a long-term partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme to support work with young people and environment.

The project began in the 1990s and went worldwide in 2004.