Background
To work in harmony with nature is one of the main goals which have to be achieved with the national biodiversity strategy. In commerce, this approach is only gradually trickling down, though enterprises are benefiting from a healthy and intact nature. This is proved by a survey, performed by the University of Applied Sciences Birkenfeld between November 2010 and February 2011, where 91 enterprises (most of them were SMEs) from Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland were asked. Though the majority (63 percent) of the questioned executives admitted to know the term “Biodiversity” for a long time, only few (18 percent) could describe what “Biodiversity” really implies. The conclusion: The issue “Biodiversity” is currently not anchored on the entrepreneurial agenda of SMEs, especially from Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.
Executives who can fill the term “Biodiversity” with content notice chances for further development of their own enterprise sooner. In their direct vicinity, SMEs can make a concrete and easy contribution to nature conservation. This includes e. g. greening of company premises or the deployment of staff for nature conservation activities.
Furthermore, along the supply chain many measures for the conservation of biodiversity can be implemented, which often can be presented promotionally effective and, in certain cases, sales supportive.
The optimization of the use of raw materials is of particular importance. Its decrease is an essential condition to preserve the accessibility of vital resources and to conserve biodiversity globally, not only in Germany. At the same time the protection of biodiversity in a wider understanding of resources is nothing else but a single aspect of resource protection. Both aspects, resource protection and biodiversity, are linked together repeatedly. The project can do justice to the situation by linking these two aspects. The fact that considerable cost-saving can be realized is an advantage for the involved SMEs. The Deutsche Materialeffizienzagentur (Demea 2008) estimates a saving potential of about 100 billion Euros of material costs in the German economy.