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 reaching climate neutrality by 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, site-, employee- and product-related emissions are taken into account.

Since 2019, the “Packen wir’s an” (Let’s Do It) theme weeks have also taken place. The fifth theme week took place in October 2023, during which companies from the Bertelsmann Content Alliance focused on sustainable consumption.