To fulfil our responsibility, we constantly evaluate what we can do to become even more sustainable. A company of our size has to consider many facets when it comes to a sustainability strategy. To coordinate our many efforts, we divide them into three categories: social, environmental and economic.
You can read about what we are doing in these three categories on this page.
We are fortunate to live in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. However, there is still a lot of inequality here too.
It is important for us to give something of our good fortune back to society. One of our main priorities is to support children and young people.
Therefore, we support charities that enable children and young people to develop without worries and with equal opportunities.
At Kids.ONE, children come first. To this end, we have been involved with the German Child Protection Association since 2017 at the cbs locations in Heidelberg, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dortmund, Munich, Freiburg, Bautzen and Raunheim. With Kids.ONE, we want to complement our commitment to supporting the next generation and live up to our social responsibility.
The German Child Protection Association is a nationwide non-profit organisation and a lobby for children. It was founded in 1953 and is an umbrella organisation of regional associations that currently represent about 430 local associations.
The principle is simple. We start collecting donations in December. All donations received by 31 January from employees and business partners are tripled by the company at the end of the campaign. Initially, the company will donate the sum of 10,000 euros.
The entire donation amount will be used to support current projects of the DKSB local and regional associations in Heidelberg, Dortmund, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Bautzen and Raunheim.
Since the beginning of Kids.ONE, the DKSB Heidelberg has received the lion’s share of the donations. These have mainly been used to set up and maintain the Bergheim clothes shop.
This year, part of the donation will go towards shopping vouchers for a purchase in Heidelberg shops. These will be given to needy families who can use them to buy school supplies, pencil cases, pens, etc. “Anyone who has to equip three or four children is literally poor,” says Claudia Kaufmann, chairperson of the DKSB Heidelberg.
The Child Protection Association in Munich would like the donation for the training of volunteers at the child and youth telephone. There, children and young people can call, describe their problems and the staff try to help them solve the problems. In the 80-hour training, the staff are prepared by psychologists and social pedagogues for relevant topics such as puberty, partnership and love or physical violence.
In Dortmund, the Kinderschutzbund provides children of mentally ill parents with a sponsor. These “time givers” have an open ear for the children’s concerns and needs and enable them to have carefree and unencumbered experiences. This year, they would like to invest the cbs donation in training the godparents.
Last year we already reported on the Children’s and Family Centre, whose construction and maintenance was partly financed by our donations. This year, the donations will again flow into this facility. Help and support for parents and children in need was also offered there during the pandemic. Children’s food and clothing was distributed. In addition, a midwife offers health consultations to ensure the health care of the mothers and babies living there.
Since almost no children’s groups could take place last year, the DKSB Stuttgart has quantitatively expanded its individual services for children and adolescents in separation situations. Instead of groups, the children are now cared for individually and supported with their questions and problems. Here, too, the donation is largely used for the training and further education of the staff.
The DKSB Rüsselsheim would like to invest the donations in the project “Playground Mentors Dicker Busch”. Every Monday afternoon, mothers go to the playgrounds in the district “Dicker Busch” and offer various activities. For this purpose, play and sports equipment is to be purchased, e.g.: Swing cloth, diabolo, pedalo, balls.
In Freiburg, the Child Protection Association offers accompanied contact. Here, children whose parents live separately can meet with the parent with whom they do not live and a third neutral person. The donations go towards the training of the staff and the upkeep of the rooms that are rented especially for accompanied contact.
At the Kinderschutzbund in Bautzen, the donations are to go towards the project “Family Weekend – Leaving Everyday Life Behind”. Socially disadvantaged families are invited to experience a weekend of carefree time with games, sports, conversations, cooking together and other activities. The activities are organised and carried out by volunteer members. The material such as food, games and sports equipment is financed by donations.
We renew our work laptops in a 4-year cycle. However, as the laptops can be used for many years longer, we donate them to schools or to the Kinderschutzbund. In 2021, we donated 1-6 laptops to each local association that also received a Kids.ONE donation. In 2020, theHugo-Eckener-Schule in Friedrichshafen received 69 laptops from us. On the right in the picture: Walter Sulovsky, teacher and brother of our founder, receives the laptops from our IT team.
But it is not only with the Child Protection Association that we pursue the goal of supporting children and young people in their development. As the main sponsor of 1. FC-Mühlhausen, we support the youth in their sporting development. We are actively involved and would like to strengthen the understanding for each other through joint training sessions and festivities with our employees.
This was also the case at the cbs Summer Camp: for this family day, FC Mühlhausen invited all cbs employees and their families to a day full of sport and fun.
We try to minimise our carbon footprint as much as possible.
Therefore, beyond CO2 neutrality, we also support projects and associations that pursue the goal of a sustainable future together with us: to leave a positive ecological footprint.
We have reached an important milestone in the implementation of our climate protection goals: cbs has been officially certified as a “climate-neutral company” by ClimatePartner, our partner for climate protection projects. This means: we have recorded our greenhouse gas emissions, are continuously reducing them and have offset the remaining emissions through climate protection projects. But that’s not the end of the matter for us! With the continuous collection, reduction and compensation of our CO2 emissions, such as by avoiding unnecessary short-haul flights or the increased use of electric vehicles, we want to keep improving.
Our headquarters in Heidelberg, which was completed in 2018, was planned with maximum energy efficiency. Among other things, we achieve this through optimal thermal insulation and photovoltaic systems. We also consciously choose sustainably designed buildings that are as energy-efficient as possible for the offices of our branches.
Trees and forests are essential for the climate. They absorb the greenhouse gas CO2 and release oxygen. The more trees there are, the more carbon can be sequestered. Our tree planting project “Trees to breathe” went into the second round on 24.03.2023 in Meschede in the Sauerland. After 5,100 trees in 2022, we had targeted 10,000 trees this year with our claim #mission10000. With a highly motivated team and local foresters, we were able to announce the achievement of this goal in the evening. In the end, 10,030 trees, mainly Douglas firs, coastal firs, larches and red oaks, were planted.
The bee is an important insect without which our agriculture would not function. It pollinates 80% of the crops. cbs supports the preservation of the honey bee by supporting the beekeepers’ association “Die Wildparkimker”. This includes an annual donation which, among other things, supports the educational work in the form of show hives. In addition, we guarantee the association an annual purchase of 300kg of honey, which ensures planning security for the members.
Economic growth is the goal of every company. Shaping this growth sustainably is a great challenge that requires constant optimisation. We rise to this challenge and also cooperate with external partners to achieve this goal.
We subject our internal processes to a permanent optimisation process, in the course of which we also consider sustainability aspects and potential effects of the processes on our sustainability goals. Every process, no matter how small, is scrutinised and improved until we can say with certainty that it fulfils all sustainability aspects as well as possible in its current form.
Since such process optimisation would be an impossible undertaking with internal resources alone, we also work with the sustainability agency Ecovadis, which looks at our processes and sustainability efforts together with us, and gives us valuable hints and tips for improvement.
We are always evolving and so will our sustainability strategy. And just as our company grows, so will our efforts to make the world of the future a better place. We are open to all suggestions, criticisms and collaborations. Please do not hesitate to contact us.
