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Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Board of Management of Bayer AG, I would like to welcome you to the premises of our representation here in Berlin.

The “Bayer Climate Award” is being presented today for the first time.

We very deliberately chose to present the award here in Berlin, as we are thus continuing a tradition that started with the presentation of the “Otto Bayer Award” here last year and the “Hansen Family Award” at the beginning of this year.

We want to present important scientific prizes in Berlin and thus underscore the tremendous importance of our capital city as regards science and research.

We are therefore pleased that so many of you accepted our invitation to today’s ceremony.

We would especially like to welcome our prize-winner, Professor Jochem.

Our theme today – climate change and climate protection – is particularly relevant to political decision-makers as well.

After all, outstanding achievements in the field of research deserve not just respect and recognition in specialist circles, but also public appreciation.

This is particularly true of the theme of climate research, on which the newly established Bayer Climate Award is focused.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Climate change is the biggest overall societal problem we face around the world.

I say this particularly in view of the fact that the financial and economic crisis is placing a tremendous burden on us.

As industrial companies we have to master this challenge by choosing a course oriented around sustainability.

Climate change endangers the natural basis of all our commercial and social actions.

It is all the more important to make a clear commitment to climate protection.

We urgently need effective regulation for significantly lowering greenhouse gases at a global level.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled to take place in Copenhagen at the end of this year must focus particularly on achieving a consensus among all major emitters – in other words in particular the United States and emerging countries such as China and India – as regards participation in a corresponding international agreement.

Europe is leading the way in climate protection, and that’s a good thing.

But we cannot do it alone. After all, climate change is a global problem that can only be solved through a global approach.

It is particularly important to make sure that assuming a pioneering role in climate protection does not put the international competitiveness of European-based industries at risk.

After all, this would also undermine the foundation upon which we are currently able to play this pioneering role.

Take emissions trading, for example:

The trading of emissions allowances is basically the right approach, as it attempts to achieve ecological effects through economic means.

Yet there is a risk that this approach could focus too heavily on bureaucratic regulations rather than incentives to achieve technological innovations.

As an inventor company, Bayer is heavily focused on innovation – including and particularly in climate protection.

At the end of 2007 we launched a climate program in which we combine a series of measures aimed at improving climate protection and coping with climate change.

In the Bayer Climate Check, for instance, we have introduced a novel tool for the comprehensive analysis and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from our global production.

Based on this is an ambitious, Group-wide program aimed at enhancing our energy efficiency.

Using the new Bayer Climate Check, we have already evaluated more than half of the facilities of relevance in terms of emissions at our sites around the world.

The results are promising: we will initiate efficiency improvement measures that will enable us to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and costs at the same time – a classic win/win situation for ecology and economy.

Together with our partners, we have developed a concept for zero-emissions office buildings in the area of commercial and industrial construction. What makes such a building unique is that it can be adapted to the Earth’s various climate zones and is thus suitable for application around the world.

This concept – in which insulating materials and regenerative energies play a key role – is called the “EcoCommercial Building.”

We are currently implementing it in the construction of an administration building at our site in New Delhi, as well as at a child care center for our employees’ offspring in Monheim, North Rhine-Westphalia.

These are just a few examples from our comprehensive climate program.

Here I would like to stress that we are not starting out from scratch. On the contrary: since 1990 we have reduced direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by 38 percent.

This is above all the result of continuously increasing energy efficiency that we have been able to achieve through the introduction of new technologies and processes. What’s more, we meet a large proportion of our energy needs with combined heat and power plants that use natural resources particularly sparingly.

Our contribution to climate protection is also recognized by independent institutions.

For example, Bayer is the only chemical and pharmaceutical company headquartered in Europe to have been included again in the “Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index” in 2008 – for the fourth time in a row.

This is the first index worldwide that lists companies according to their contributions to climate protection.

It is evident from our financial commitment that we are not satisfied with what we have accomplished in climate protection so far, but rather want to continue playing a leading role in this area:

By 2010 we will invest EUR 1 billion in climate-relevant research and development and projects.

As part of our climate program, we also want to constructively contribute to the scientific and social policy discourse surrounding climate change.

To this end we have launched two initiatives in particular:

The Bayer Science & Education Foundation each year awards scholarships to young people who are especially active in climate protection. We are pleased that four of our scholars are in attendance today.

In addition, the foundation has established the Bayer Climate Award.

This is the first international award presented specifically in honor of outstanding achievements in fundamental research into climate science.

At the same time, we are thus recognizing the tremendous importance to society as a whole of climate science as a field of research. The award will be presented every two years from now on.

We have already talked about the theme to which the first-ever Bayer Climate Award winner has dedicated most of his professional life: energy efficiency.

More than almost any other researcher, Professor Jochem has worked out and proven that improving energy efficiency is the central lever for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the various areas of our industrialized society.

The concept of energy efficiency is very simple – which is why it is so promising.

The efficient use of energy lowers costs and at the same time reduces the emission of greenhouse gases.

Professor Jochem has demonstrated that the potential to increase energy efficiency is not even close to being exhausted everywhere.

It is his mission to repeatedly and tenaciously point out through his research and his work in councils and institutions that further improvements and innovations in this field are possible and feasible.

That’s why today we are honoring Professor Jochem with the Bayer Climate Award.

The foundation’s Board of Trustees selected Professor Jochem for his work from a long list of illustrious nominees.

In a few moments, Professor Winnacker and Dr. Plischke – who is the member of our Board of Management responsible for Innovation, Technology and Environment – will talk in detail about the award winner’s outstanding accomplishments and character.

Ladies and gentlemen, the fundamental research findings of numerous institutions provide invaluable contributions over and over again for our activities.

That’s why we also regard the presentation of the Bayer Climate Award as token of our appreciation and a symbol of the close cooperation between industry and science.

This is of inestimable value in a country in which – more than anywhere else – knowledge will be the raw material of which the future is made.

This also applies specifically to the two institutions in which our prize winner has spent the majority of his professional life: ETH Zurich and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe.

Professor Jochem, with your groundbreaking research you have provided us with valuable findings that help us to better understand certain relationships that are of importance particularly to industry.

The Bayer Climate Award is a token of our recognition and appreciation of your work.

Although you already carry the title “emeritus”, it should encourage you not to stand still, but rather to continue on your chosen path. But I am sure that you will do just that.

After all, you are already focused on the next project:

As you have informed us, you will donate today’s prize money of EUR 50,000 to a foundation for climate research that you are currently establishing.

We are very pleased that the Bayer Climate Award is thus exactly fulfilling its goal, and will serve as an impulse and catalyst for further significant achievements in the field of climate science.

On behalf of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation, the Board of Management of Bayer AG and the entire company, I would like to congratulate you on this award.

We wish you continued luck, health and success in your further endeavors and private life.
Thank you.


Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports, which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.