Today, Germany's number one power producer RWE and the IUCN signed a three-year agreement on biodiversity management at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The aim is to further integrate protection of biological diversity into the corporate business decisions of the company.

"In our increasingly populous and urbanized world, global energy demand continues to soar," says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. "At the same time, we are losing biodiversity faster than ever before. How can we satisfy our present and future energy needs without jeopardizing nature, our life support system? This is the challenge that IUCN and RWE will address together."

IUCN´s work focuses on three key areas: valuing and conserving nature, ensuring effective and equitable governance of nature´s use and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development. RWE has wide experience in the protection and restoration of ecosystems, especially in the established business fields such as the operation of grids but also in oil and lignite mining.

The agreement aims to combine IUCN's conservation expertise and access to experts and the environmental NGO and government community with RWE's business knowledge, energy operations on the ground, and implementation capabilities. Pilot projects will evaluate the impact of energy operations on ecosystems and the feasibility to adapt the choice of technology to on-site biodiversity management. Potential initiatives that have been identified involve offshore wind power in the North Sea and solar energy in North Africa, among others.

"IUCN enjoys a high international reputation with environmental organizations, governments, scientific institutions and companies. It is the world's authority on conserving nature and natural resources," says Peter Terium, CEO of RWE AG. "For RWE this cooperation is an opportunity to learn from an important stakeholder and to achieve our aim to become more sustainable. We go out of our way to preserve and upgrade the habitats of native flora and fauna wherever possible."

Please direct enquiries to:
Annett Urbaczka
RWE AG
Head of Group Press Relations
T +49 201 12 17441

Brigitte Lambertz
RWE AG
Spokeswoman
T +49 201 12 15599


About IUCN

IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges.

IUCN's work focuses on valuing and conserving nature, ensuring effective and equitable governance of its use, and deploying nature-based solutions to global challenges in climate, food and development. IUCN supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world, and brings governments, NGOs, the UN and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.

IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental organization, with more than 1,200 government and NGO members and almost 11,000 volunteer experts in some 160 countries. IUCN's work is supported by over 1,000 staff in 45 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world.

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