The United Nations has declared this decade the UN Decade of Biodiversity to raise awareness of the global extinction of species and to promote measures to halt it.
Audi is contributing to this effort and is implementing biodiversity projects at all sites. As a member of the Biodiversity in Good Company initiative, the company is committed to preserving biological diversity and has consolidated all activities that contribute to this effort in its Mission:Zero environmental program.
The project in Munchsmunster received Bavaria's 'Bluhender Betrieb' award in 2019. This award is part of the 'Bluhpakt Bayern' initiative, with which the Bavarian State Ministry for the Environment and Consumer Protection wants to encourage companies to make their spaces flower- and insect-friendly.
Projects like this are a benchmark for similar efforts at all other Audi locations worldwide. The biodiversity project in Munchsmunster is a central project for Audi as part of the nationwide Biodiversity in Good Company initiative, which the company joined in 2015. The initiative brings together companies from a wide array of industries to work together to protect and sustainably deploy worldwide biodiversity.
Audi is also committed to preserving biological diversity beyond the confines of the company. The Oak Forest research project was launched in 2008 in the Koschinger Forest near Ingolstadt with around 36,000 English oak trees, now comprising more than 100,000 trees in various areas around the Audi sites in Ingolstadt, Neckarsulm, Gyor, Brussels and San Jose Chiapa. The Audi Environmental Foundation was established in 2009 and has taken on the long-term scientific support for this project. The interactions between stand density, biological diversity and CO2-binding potential are being studied under the direction of the Chair of Forest Growth Science at the Technical University of Munich.
