At RTL, we feel it’s important to combine our business success with responsible action towards environmental protection. RTL is mindful that resource conservation and climate protection are key challenges in the 21st century and aims to minimise its impact on the environment by reducing its energy use and its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions.

RTL has measured and published its carbon footprint since 2008 in coordination with Bertelsmann. Serving as the key indicator for evaluating and continually improving the Group’s carbon footprint, it was formerly calculated based on each country’s average energy mix in which RTL is active. To improve data quality, since 2017 it has been calculated based on the emissions associated with RTL’s individual electricity supply contracts.

Given the increased urgency of climate change, RTL is committed to supporting the international target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels through its Climate Target 2030. To achieve this goal, an RTL-wide Climate Task Force was launched early in 2021 with the aim of sharing knowledge on carbon footprint measurements and working together to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The objective is to avoid, reduce and compensate for unavoidable emissions. For this purpose, scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emissions are taken into account.

RTL Group pushed ahead with climate protection measures such as the implementation of a heat recovery system, new photovoltaic systems, the certification of TV and film productions to regional sustainability standards.

Since 2019, the “Packen wir’s an” (Let’s Do It) theme weeks have also taken place. The sixth theme week took place in September 2024, during which RTL Deutschland focused on (under)water world and biodiversity.