Preamble

The Chocolate Museum is and remains one of the most important attractions for all Cologne residents and tourists from near and far. We inspire 550,000 visitors every year with cocoa and chocolate. From this we derive our responsibility as a multiplier on the topic of sustainable development.

As part of the 2030 Agenda, the United Nations has defined 17 goals for sustainable development. These include, for example: No hunger, decent work, sustainable consumption and production and climate protection measures.

We at the Chocolate Museum feel obliged to make our contribution to achieving these goals.

At the Chocolate Museum, we provide our visitors with a wonderful atmosphere in which to experience the many facets of cocoa and chocolate. To do this, we use considerable amounts of electrical and thermal energy, we are supplied with vehicles and we produce waste. This creates a CO₂ footprint, which is a measure of our use of non-sustainable energy sources and products. Our aim is to gradually reduce this footprint through appropriate measures and ultimately leave no more CO₂ footprint on our planet.

We at the Chocolate Museum have set ourselves the goal of achieving CO₂ neutrality by 2023. In this way, we will report annually on our progress and objectives in a sustainability report.

At the Chocolate Museum, we feel equally committed to presenting not only the sweet side of chocolate, but also the complexity of the supply chain with all its social, economic and ecological aspects.

Our visitors are showing an ever-growing interest in this topic and want to get to grips with the effects of their own consumption behavior.

In our exhibition and our educational programs, visitors are informed about the problematic working and living conditions of people in the cocoa-growing countries and the ecological challenges of cocoa cultivation. Using current examples, we show how companies and organizations are working to improve this difficult situation and achieve the goals for sustainable development.

At the Chocolate Museum, we regularly train our employees on the topic of sustainable development in cocoa cultivation and chocolate production, and we also strive for long-term educational partnerships with schools and other educational institutions on the topic of sustainable development in the cocoa and chocolate industry. Intensive cooperation with all organizations involved in sustainable development in this area is a matter of course for us.

At the Chocolate Museum, we see our educational work on sustainable development as an essential part of our social commitment to a world with a future.