Flowering meadow with beehives on the SOLIDA site

Green is beautiful – but even more so if dotted with colours: that's the feeling SOLIDA employees get every morning. Next to the employee car park, a lawn has been turned into a flower meadow that blooms in all the colours of the summer. If you go closer, you'll see and hear hums and buzzes: honeybees flying from flower to flower. This is their home. Three beehives have been set up on the edge of the 1,400 square metre meadow since May 2020.

The SOLIDA bees are a testimony to the company's effort to promote environmental sustainability. "We also have an ecological responsibility," says Managing Director Julia Broy. In the production process, this is reflected in permanent improvements, for example in reducing the consumption of electricity and water and optimising packaging. SOLIDA is four times TÜV-certified, not only for quality and occupational safety but also for energy management and <link 54>environmental protection</link>.

"With our flowering meadow we want to create a new living space for bees," says Julia Broy. The bees are kept by the hobby beekeeper Sven Chudzinski, who proposed the idea of SOLIDA bees during a chance conversation with SOLIDA managing director Thomas Schäfer. Trust and commitment are strong, because both are united by Volksbank im Bergischen Land – Thomas Schäfer is Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Sven Chudzinski is an employee. "This is ideal for us: We know the person coming to our site and have a competent partner for our environmental project," says Julia Broy. And Sven Chudzinski knows that his bees are not only in a safe environment, but also at a sufficient distance from the mother colonies in his garden.

The SOLIDA bees will not be able to produce honey until next year, but Julia Broy is already looking forward to giving it away to employees and customers. The first two jars will probably go to plant manager Wolfgang Mühlhaus and Heike Benke from Purchasing. The two of them have supported the bee pasture project from the very beginning. Irrigation system, the selection of the right seeds and suitable flowering shrubs – "that's more complex than we initially assumed," admits Julia Broy. But when the beginning is made, the meadow grows and blooms by itself. And gives pleasure every day.