Business Council for Sustainable Development in Hungary
1118 Budapest, Ménesi street 9/a.
Policies and statements
Privacy policy
Competition Law Statement
Code of Ethics
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) National Partner
A Hungarian MA/MSC student will have a chance to win free participation to our ‘Future Leaders’ Talent Program 2016. We are kindly ask our member companies to assist in the dissemination of the program among universities in order to attract more high quality applications until 30th of October.
You can can follow on Facebook at the following link!
Irén Márta will take over the position of Managing Director of the Business Council for Sustainable Development in Hungary from 15th October.
The new leader will take over this task from Ida Petrik, with whom BCSDH has been through significant development.
During Ida’s tenure as Managing Director the number of member companies rose to 70, and moreover, the organisation became an important player in the field of sustainable business solutions in Hungary. Ida Petrik is carrying her third child and would like to spend the next two years with her family.
Irén Márta is an economist and communications expert who has supported the Business Council’s work as an Executive Board Member for more than six years. She has played a major role in several of the Council’s programs, including the elaboration of the Leaders’ Recommendations (concerning the principles of sustainable leadership) and the launch of the International Vision 2050 program in Hungary.
Her professional work in disseminating the principles of sustainable construction in Hungary was recognised with two prominent, international awards in 2011: the Sabre Award and the European Excellence Award.
The primary objective of the new leader is to further promote our successul, pre-existing programs (namely, Action 2020 and the Future Leader program) with the involvement of members, and further develop the organization itself.
Another of her important objectives, beside promoting the ’good practices’ of the parent organization of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in Hungary, is to involve members in the programs of the central body.
She considers the deeper engagement of the organisation in the sustainable development-supporting regulatory environment to be extremely important.
This full-day course in Budapest will focus on key concepts of green building design and how to define green workspace.
What is a green workspace and why should company owners, interior designers and facility managers deal with this concept? This course explains key concepts of green building design and how to define green workspace. It shows through practical examples the benefits of greener workspaces for all stakeholders and how to green an existing workspace. The course aims to give an understanding of the role of the green work space in the big picture of green building, climate change and the shift to a green economy. This course will be in English.
DATE: TUESDAY October 6th 2015
TIME: 8:30 – 17:00
VENUE: SIEMENS Conference Center
ADDRESS 51-57. Gizella út 1143 Budapest
WHY ATTEND?
- Understand the characteristics and benefits of green workspaces
- Explore ways of greening office spaces and find out how it improves wellbeing and productivity
- Learn about ways of saving costs through operating a sustainable work environment
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- Understand the key concepts of green building design
- Define the green workspace
- Understand the benefits of greener workspaces for all stakeholders
- Identify key concepts in designing a green workspace
- Identify key concepts in greening your existing workspace
- Understanding the role of the green work space in the big picture of green building, climate change and the shift to a green economy
COURSE SCHEDULE
- Welcome & Registration
- Introductions
- Why green building
- The green workspace – what is it?
- Break
- The benefits of a green workspace
- Lunch & Siemens green roof tour
- Making the case for green workspaces
- Characteristics of a green workspace
- Review
- Designing a green workspace
- Greening your existing workspace
- Review
- The green office inside
- What’s next
COURSE INSTRUCTOR: The course will be led by US green building construction professional and certified instructor, Joseph Marfi, LEED AP and Director of Sustainable Design & Construction for Turner Construction. Mr. Marfi is a native Hungarian, trained as an Architect, and has decades of field experience as a general contractor and construction manager in 3 continents.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
- GREEN BUILDING PROFESSIONALS
- FACILITY MANAGERS
- FINANCIERS AND UPPER MANAGEMENT
COST OF COURSE
HuGBC & RICS members – 15.000 HUF + VAT
Industry Professionals – 20.000 HUF + VAT
DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY
Seating is limited to 30 people.
Please CLICK HERE to RSVP and register for this course.
The level of unemployment among young people has almost reached 20%, 1.8 million tons of food are wasted an annual basis, global warming (which may reach 2°C by 2050) is already impacting Hungary, only 9% of surface water is of good quality and sustainable consumers make up only 10% of the population. These are just some of the reasons that companies who operate over the long term and who are responsible are being called to action.
The Action 2020 Hungary program inspires companies to take action. It’s a platform for action, a platform for business to contribute solutions to environmental and social challenges as well as business challenges facing our country. You can find attached the Action 2020 Hungary brochure.
Be next to join 
The program of Action 2020 Hungary defines the domestic goals until 2020, the implementation of which the business sector can make a significant contribution to.
If You also agree with these goals and that business sector can make a major contribution to solving the sustainability challenges facing Hungary, please join the program. By joining, your company will undertake to implement a minimum of two business solutions until 2020, by means of which it will contribute to the achievement of two the goals chosen. The impacts of the solution shall be measured and shared with us.
Implement and share your business solutions 
If your company has a ready-made solution contributive to the goals set by Action 2020 Hungary
program, share it with us so that others can draw ideas from you. Our program aims to collect and spread business solutions contributive to solving sustainability challenges that go beyond ”business as usual”.
We are seeking change leaders 
The business sector and the whole economic and social system have to find effective and long-term solutions to an increasing number of sustainability challenges. Change is brought about by real solutions, the initiators and implementors of which are important change leaders. Be one of them. Inspire others with your ideas, practices, share your experience, challenges, difficulties and multiply your individual impact by showing an example. We are convinced that enterprises which are successful in the long term also play a key-role in promoting sustainability.
More information and how to join: Mandy Fertetics, mandy.fertetics@bcsdh.hu
Business solution template can be downloaded from here: Action_2020_Hungary_Application_form
The Sustainability Services team at KPMG in the Netherlands, together with WWF International, has published ”Ready or not? An assessment of sustainability integration in the European bank sector”. The report examines the extent to which 12 major European banks currently take environmental and social (E&S) factors, such as climate change and resource scarcity, into consideration in their commercial and investment activities.
Energy saving is a key feature of every installation made with Legrand products. Legrand as the worldwide professional of products and systems for electrical installations and information network, offers more and more solutions for the better usage of electricity and the cut down of energy consumption. As we can use Legrand products long term and they can be easily and quickly installed, they contribute to sustainable development.
Energy saving solutions at our home
As lighting gives 1/3 of our home’s electricity cost, this is key to have economical solutions to reduce our costs.
The most obvious and cheapest solution is to light with natural blaze but this is not always an optimum and consummative answer. To be efficient and make our costs lower we can change our lighting solutions.
The easiest way is not to leave our light on needlessly. We should switch off all the lights not only when we leave our home but even when we just leave a room for a short time.
The best way is to adopt our energy consumption to our everyday habits. Legrand helps us to solve this problem with partially or fully automated home systems.
Dimmers can make our life more comfortable by adopting the light level to our routine. By using motion and presence sensors we can spare ourselves from the manual switching as they automatically manage it. In a home controlled by intelligent home systems, we can set our lighting, temperature and energy saving according to our habits.
Our electricity cost can be reduced by almost 50% if we use Legrand motion sensors and dimmers. Beside cost saving we can make a comfortable atmosphere to ourselves and to our family.
Beside the easiness of the settings of the smart lighting control, the home system allows us to manage different functions at the same time. It can be warmer in the children’s room, a little bit cooler in the living room, very bright in the dining room, what is best for everybody.
Legrand went much more further to feel ourselves comfortable. With intelligent systems the combined and special needs can be achieved by only one touch of a button. Preset scenarios and timing for example dinners, relaxation or friendly chats can be started, by only pushing a single button. Of course, we can manage our lights from simple switches or from touch screens or even from our mobile phone. Thanks to the Legrand’s MyHOME intelligent system, we can achieve a 45% saving in our lighting costs.
To help our costumers in our catalogue we put a little green icon next to our energy efficient products. Our company strategy’s main point is to rise the supply of environment friendly product.
As a summary we can say that Legrand is committed in reducing energy wasting, and developing of energy efficiency and allow us to feel more comfortable.
ALTEO Group closed one of the largest energy market acquisitions among private companies in May 2015. Following the obtainment of necessary permits and the fulfillment of other conditions stated in the contract, Synergy Energy provider, Investment and Consulting ltd. became the property of the upcoming, listed alternative energy company. The acquisition covered Sinergy’s shares in its 11 subsidiaries as well, thus nine project companies completely, while two partially came under ALTEO ownership.
ALTEO became the leading player of the domestic energy sector’s second line following the deal. Its power plant-portfolio was increased by 41.5 megawatt electricity and 220.6 megawatt heat production capacities. The dynamically developing company’s energy trade portfolio strengthened significantly after the deal: it will be able to sell the produced electricity to end users and other industry players via diversified channels, by the obtained energy producing capacities and power plant control centre.
Regarding the deal, Attila Chikán Jr., CEO of ALTEO group emphasized: “A flexible company needs to realize the tendencies to constant change in the energy structures’ philosophy of operation. The future clearly points to the »smart energy management« approach, which, on the producers’ side is described by particularly high efficiency and the increasing integration of renewable energy sources. On consumers’ part it is about innovations targeting improved energy efficiency and energy-saving, while for energy partners and service providers it is related to the increasingly complex serving of customer needs by innovative products and services. This operational and service approach is a crucial part of the strengthened ALTEO Group’s strategy. We will continue along this philosophy in the future.”
ALTEO Group’s power plant portfolio was broadened with additional, renewable energy source-using and traditional, highly efficient energy producing systems, by the integration of Synergy. The company possesses numerous know-hows on the field of complex energy services, which includes the improvement and operation of existing, and the design and implementation of new energy systems. With the company, ALTEO Group gained a virtual power plant with a close to 40 megawatt capacity, to which the groups existing energy producing capacities can be connected easily.
Telenor Youth Forum invites young people to compete.
How can mobile technology provide equal opportunities for all? The global Telenor Youth Forum is seeking an answer to this question. The company has announced its international program for young people aged 18 to 27 with clear-cut ideas on how education and unlimited access to information can change the world.
This year again, the Telenor Group and the Nobel Peace Center joined forces to organize their Youth Forum, a global platform for young people keen to transform the world they live in – and our digital future. This year’s event is centred around the use of mobile technology to improve knowledge sharing and access to information. The forum will bring together young people from 13 countries in Europe and Asia who will meet and share their views and experience with each other in Oslo between 8 and 11 December 2015 when they will also have an opportunity to attend Nobel Peace Prize events.
“Digital communication opens new opportunities in education, and it plays a key role in learning, acquiring new skills and accelerating development. Digital natives can have interesting insights and suggestions for education and knowledge sharing. For this reason, we are encouraging them to participate in the Youth Forum competition, share their ideas and initiate change to make the digital future an opportunity for all”, said István Kutas, Communications Director of Telenor.
Hungarian applicants need to submit an English-language essay of up to 300 words on the topic “Knowledge for All” by 20 September. This year’s ideal candidates are passionate young people aged 18 to 27 with a can-do attitude, fresh thinking and good reasoning skills. They need to speak good English and have exciting insights about the future of education and knowledge sharing.
Hungarian candidates have to present their ideas to the local jury in September. Based on their presentations, 4 candidates will be shortlisted for the international finals. The names of the two winners travelling to the Telenor Youth Forum in Oslo will be announced in November.
Topics for the essays:
- For millions of children around the world the right to education remains inaccessible. How should we seek to leverage the opportunities brought by the internet and digital solutions to provide them with access to education?
- How can the internet help provide an opportunity for lifelong learning to as many people as possible?
- How does one-click access to information influence the learning and education process?
Applicants can discuss these questions with each other and even the members of the Hungarian jury during a kick-off event of the Telenor Youth Forum.
Date: 9 September 2015, 5:30-8:00 pm
Venue: A Grund, H-1082 Budapest, Nagytemplom utca 30. (map)
Let’s talk about our digital future together!
42 volunteer employees of Henkel held sustainability classes so far to almost 1700 students from 41 Budapest and provincial schools during the company’s Sustainability Ambassador Program. In the program the volunteer employees – ambassadors – of the company visit elementary schools and teach the students in a playful class how to live environmentally consciously, save water and electricity. The goal of the initiative is to teach environmentally conscious habits to the elementary school kids.
Henkel employees visit elementary schools since 2013 within the framework of the company’s Sustainability Ambassador Program, and held playful sustainability classes. Since the launch of the program, 42 volunteers Henkel employees drew the students’ attention on the importance of green thinking in 41 schools, during 72 extraordinary lessons, in which 1,698 students have participated so far. Henkel visits primary schools worldwide with 3800 ambassador in about 70 countries.
Sustainability is especially important to Henkel, and commitment to society has always been part of the company’s social responsibility. As part of the program, the Henkel employees complete a training to become Sustainability Ambassadors, and visit school from the capital and the countryside, where they show the children in playful, interactive classes how they can act environmentally consciously in their everyday life. During the special classes, students can learn tricks and tips, which can help them to protect the environment, save water and electricity.
“The Sustainability Ambassadors is really a gap filling program, the experiences prove that a comprehensive, amusing and understandable environmental education is really needed in elementary schools. We are very proud of the results of the program, our colleagues and the kids also enjoy the lessons very much” – said dr. Ágnes Fábián, CEO and volunteer sustainability ambassador of Henkel Magyarország.
Henkel is confident that the students will remember what they have learned as adults and green thinking will be natural for them. The Henkel Sustainability Ambassador Program won the “The corporate volunteer program of the year” award at the tender of Önkéntes Központ Alapítvány (Volunteer Centre Foundation) in 2014.