Through the eyes #10
Wednesday 06 July 2022
This week Austrian colleagues will introduce us to their ecological project involving over a million bees! Discover more about the initiative and how it is bringing UniCredit Austria closer to its communities.
At UniCredit Bank Austria, ecological sustainability plays a critical role in both the way we do business and the way we impact the communities in which we operate.
It is a widely reported fact that global bee populations are in decline. The loss of habitats due to urbanization and farming, the effects of climate change, and the widespread use of pesticides are all contributing to this phenomenon, which has dire implications for our world. Bees play a major role as pollinators of plants that other species need to survive; if we lose them, all of nature will feel the catastrophic effects.
UniCredit Bank Austria saw this as a call to action. We were determined that we would take responsibility for this crisis in the natural world. What is more, we would respond to it in the right way.
That’s why we partnered with Bienenzentrum (“Bee Centre”, BIEZEN – Wiener Honigmanufaktur) to launch this initiative.
Bienenzentrum are a group that is completely committed to organic beekeeping. With their help, Bank Austria have given a home to more than one million bees on the roof terrace of our Vienna headquarters in the past two years.
Within a flight radius of 3 kilometres around the beehives, the bee colonies on our campus travel around 75 million kilometres and supply the bank with around 500 kg of organic honey per year, which makes an excellent gift to customers, partners, and employees.
As well as providing a space for twenty bee colonies to flourish, this initiative has also brough the community within our bank closer together. Our employees have embraced this opportunity to further their environmental education.
Currently, they are busy planning educational workshops with our beekeeper Marian Aschenbrenner, which will take place at UniCredit Centre Am Kaiserwasser in the Spring.
Through these workshops, participants can fully immerse themselves in the world of bees – learning about biodiversity and ecological interrelationships, including bee work with all senses.
With this initiative, we are also strengthening the ecologically important ‘bee fleet’ here in Vienna, and bee workshops for school classes in our UniCredit Centre Am Kaiserwasser.
For CEO Robert Zadrazil, the settlement of the bees was a logical next step: “With this initiative, we are also strengthening the ecologically important ‘bee fleet’ here in Vienna, and bee workshops for school classes in our UniCredit Centre Am Kaiserwasser. All in all, a nice, consistent project that ideally complements our existing initiatives in the environmental, sustainability and education sectors!”. We are excited to continue our partnership with Bienenzentrum for the foreseeable future and to benefit from their expertise in the professional care of bees. With their help, we hope to further our education and to achieve something more, together.
Discover more stories from our 2021 Annual Report here: