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European Commission
  • News announcement
  • 7 November 2019
  • Madrid
  • 2 min read

European Business and Nature Summit - Statements from businesses

Vice President at BASF and CEO of the value balancing alliance, Christian Heller, said: Without a stable natural environment, societies and business will not flourish. It is in our own self-interest as business to contribute to the conservation of nature. As partners in the value balancing alliance, our objective is to enable and empower decision makers to create and protect long-term value for the planet and societies by integrating natural capital. The European Business for Nature Summit is an essential platform to position our alliance and to build relations with the relevant experts.” CEO of Danone, Emmanuel Faber, said: “At Danone, we place nature at the heart of our business; a positioning that our company signature “One Planet, One Health” embodies perfectly. We are committed to promoting the development of an environmentally-friendly food value chain; a goal that cannot be ultimately fulfilled without becoming a carbon neutral company, which we have pledged to reach by 2050 (and by 2020 for our mineral water brand Evian). As shown by the recent launch of our coalition “One Planet Business for Biodiversity”, we are committed to build and reinforce alliances between key stakeholders in the food value chain so that we can, together, catalyze systemic change and create a truly sustainable agricultural system and protect biodiversity.” Responsible Banking Director at Caixa Bank, Sandra González, said: “CaixaBank manages its business and all its products and services in line with the commitment to protect both the environment and people. In line with our environmental management plan, we strive to improve our environmental efficiency while remaining carbon neutral. We support environmentally-friendly initiatives and projects that help prevent, mitigate and respond to climate change and other negative environmental impacts. In 2018, we financed renewable energy projects totalling 645 million euros. Since 2011, our financed projects have generated over 23,700 MW of installed capacity. We are also keenly aware that environmental degradation poses considerable business risks. In 2019, CaixaBank developed an Environmental Risk Management Policy to regulate the financing of certain companies and projects that pose a potential environmental, social and governance risk. The European Business and Nature Summit allows us to push the sustainable agenda forward, which is one of our strategic priorities. It is an unmissable opportunity to share and gain access to the best business practices in the field.”