Fostering dialog with our stakeholders

When formulating the direction and the goals of our sustainability management, we take the perspectives and interests of our stakeholders into account. This includes all persons or groups who are directly or indirectly affected by our business activities now or in the future. With many of them we foster a regular dialog, giving particular priority to our customers’ needs. We communicate with them closely and as partners – all the more so where we specifically perform preliminary work for customers in our branches or at their own production sites. This exchange intensifies when developing new logistics sites or joint major projects and provides extremely focused and valuable feedback.

We also place a special focus on incorporating the expectations of our employees into our decision-making. One of the ways in which we do this is through the feedback conversations among colleagues and/or with supervisors. We also survey the people at BLG annually on employee mobility and have made reducing emissions in this area part of our climate protection strategy.

Similarly, we maintain close contact with the City of Bremen as our main shareholder. We provide information, participate in exchange formats and, last but not least, support Bremen’s climate protection goals through our own commitment to climate protection and our ambitious climate targets.

We also participate in the Überseehafen Round Table under the auspices of the Senator of Economic Affairs, Ports and Transformation and organized by bremenports. As a member of the steering group and in cooperation with the companies involved, we are pursuing the common goal of ensuring a permanently resilient supply of the Bremerhaven overseas port, while at the same time realizing a CO₂-neutral port location. We reach other important groups through individual formats – see graphic. We also benefit from the fact that nearly all stakeholders of material importance to us sit on the Supervisory Board via representatives from industry, banks, the workforce, labor unions and the public sector. Our Advisory Board is made up of experts specializing in sustainable logistics, process innovation in logistics and junior management training as well as representatives from business, trade associations and media.

It is an indisputable fact that the transformation to a sustainable economy can only succeed if we work together, which is why we collaborate with partners, institutions and also competitors in associations and professional circles to address the challenges we are all facing. Our CEO Frank Dreeke was a member of the Board of the Central Association of German Seaport Operators (ZDS) in the reporting year, having previously been Chairman for many years. The ZDS is one of the most important interfaces between the port sector and the political arena. Furthermore, Frank Dreeke is a member of the Presidium of the German Transport Forum (DVF) and Vice Chairman of the German Logistics Association (BVL). We are also part of the spokesperson team of the BVL topic group “Nachhaltig gestalten” (“Shaping sustainability”) and are a member of the steering committee of the German Energy Agency’s (dena) “Nachhaltiger Schwerlastverkehr” platform has the goal to reduce emissions in heavy goods transport and, hand in hand with this, to support political energy transition targets – while at the same time providing long-term planning and investment security for the players. In the reporting year, position papers were published on the requirements for expanding the refueling and charging infrastructure for climate-friendly commercial vehicles and the introduction of a CO₂-based truck toll.

We have been a member of the Association of European Vehicle Logistics (ECG) for many years, which represents the interests of finished vehicle logistics companies in Europe. In a cooperation project with the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), in which vehicle manufacturers and logistics service providers – including ourselves – are also involved, a standard for calculating and reporting emissions in the automotive industry supply chain was developed and published in 2023. Beyond this, the ECG and the ECG Academy training program it organizes are of particular importance when it comes to exchanging ideas within the industry.