Foreword

Successful sustainable development – in balance with social needs and goals

Werner Wenning, Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer AG

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Werner Wenning,
Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer AG

Dear readers,
Our company is coming off a record year 2006. We have also made a good start in 2007 and offer very attractive perspectives for the future.

Yet Bayer doesn’t just measure success by good business figures. Anchored in our Mission Statement is the philosophy that our technological and commercial expertise involves a responsibility to work on behalf of humankind. And of course we uphold this responsibility with our products in the areas of health care, nutrition and high-tech materials.

We also want to become active in social issues and make a lasting positive contribution to sustainable, environmentally friendly development. We thus are committed to the principles of sustainable development and the United Nations Global Compact and expressly embrace our role as a socially and ethically responsible corporate citizen. Of special significance in this connection is corporate compliance, which involves the observation of our corporate guidelines. We do not tolerate illegal conduct anywhere in the world.

Numerous activities of our company are dedicated to an issue that is currently occupying the entire world: climate change. As you can read in detail in this Sustainable Development Report, we are very well positioned in terms of the climate-friendly deployment of resources and production efficiency. One of the accolades Bayer received last year as a result of these accomplishments was our inclusion in the Climate Leadership Index of the Carbon Disclosure Project – an internationally acknowledged ranking. Here we were named the world’s best company in our sector.

Our products contribute in many ways to solving climate problems – in keeping with our slogan “Bayer: Science For A Better Life.” We recently initiated a comprehensive project, the Bayer Climate Challenge Program, which will aim to demonstrate how our company can make an even greater contribution to solving climate protection problems and dealing with the consequences of climate change.

Our commitment to environmental protection also includes our partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The long list of cooperation projects maintained by these two partners is headed by Bayer’s Young Environmental Envoy Program, in the context of which young people from around the world travel to Germany to learn about environmental protection in theory and practice. Another highlight is on the horizon, as this year for the first time we will host a unep youth environmental summit in Leverkusen.

Bayer places special emphasis on numerous projects in the field of health care. For example, the company participates in the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in order to intensify the fight against these three major epidemics. Bayer is also working together with the U.S.-based non-profit organization The Global Alliance for tb Drug Development on the development of a novel anti-tuberculosis drug designed to shorten the current duration of treatment. What’s more, Bayer HealthCare is supporting the World Health Organization (WHO) in the fight against Chagas disease by providing 2.5 million tablets of the medicine Lampit as well as additional funding.

We also act as a good corporate citizen in the field of education. After all, Bayer’s achievements as an inventor company are based on advances in science and research. That’s why we support outstanding scientific achievements and talented young researchers, for example through awards and scholarships presented by the newly established Bayer Science & Education Foundation. A selection of the award-winners and scholarship recipients and their projects is presented in this Sustainable Development Report.

Our 2005 publication was last year named “Best Sustainable Development Report” by the German Chamber of Certified Accountants. We were very pleased about this. The jury found that we displayed a high level of honesty, used clear language and found a good way of dealing with critical themes. This year we have once again aligned our sustainability reporting to the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). We are convinced that this time again, we are giving you interesting and meaningful insights into our company’s multifaceted activities in the area of sustainability and corporate social responsibility.