Our donations

Basel Cancer League
Since 2014 Bayer Switzerland has supported the cancer charity Krebsliga beider Basel. This partnership is particularly close to our hearts: As a highly regarded institution, Krebsliga beider Basel understands the challenges for sick people and for society. Our donations have helped finance an information and meeting center on Petersplatz, Basel. Many cancer patients go through treatment only to find out that their condition is incurable; others have been cured but are still not back to full health. In the past, there was nowhere these patients could go in the Basel region to obtain support to help them reintegrate into everyday life. The center offers them and their loved ones professional psychosocial support in order to meet the emotional and social needs of those affected as well as the demand for information about the disease. 

Swiss Solidarity
In March 2022, we launched an internal fundraising campaign in conjunction with Swiss Solidarity and asked employees to donate money to support refugees from and individuals affected by the war in Ukraine. Bayer Switzerland doubled the amount donated by our employees, allowing us to collect a total of CHF 126,048.

Kinderkrebs Schweiz
In 2022 we donated CHF 18,000 to children’s cancer charity Kinderkrebs Schweiz. Thanks to early diagnosis and successful treatments, four out of five children and young people now survive cancer. The objective is for intensive research to be conducted and optimal treatment and post-closure care to be provided so that in the future, every child and young person survives cancer with as few long-term effects as possible.

The Kinderkrebs Schweiz information platform allows affected families and other interested parties to obtain relevant information to help them through the stressful post-diagnosis period as well as during treatment. 

Stiftung Theodora
The Consumer Health Division of Bayer Switzerland has been working together with the Stiftung Theodora foundation since 2020. The foundation aims to make the lives of children in hospital a little brighter through fun and laughter. It organizes and finances weekly visits by professional performing artists, referred to as “dream doctors.” The amount donated was CHF 7,500.

Debra Schweiz
Our Consumer Health Division has also supported DEBRA Switzerland since 2021. This is a patient organization for people suffering from the congenital, currently incurable skin disease epidermolysis bullosa (EB). In 2022 we launched “Butterfly Month,” during which we sent information and display window material to 800 pharmacies and drugstores across Switzerland to help raise awareness of epidermolysis bullosa among the general public. Moreover, we also donated one franc to DEBRA Switzerland for every Bepanthen DERMA SensiDaily protective balm product sold during this month. We were able to collect around CHF 15,000 during this donation campaign. 

Schweizer Tafel
Bayer Switzerland donated 60,000 packs of RedoxImmuno and 10,000 units of Santogen to the food bank foundation Schweizer Tafel in the first half of 2022. In the second half of the year we also donated Bepanthen DERMA products worth around CHF 24,500.

Schweizer Tafel collects surplus but perfect quality goods and food from companies and then distributes these free of charge to 500 social organizations such as homeless shelters, soup kitchens, emergency accommodation centers, and women’s refuges across Switzerland. Through its work, it aims to bridge the gap between abundance and deficit and help people in need across Switzerland, in keeping with our vision “Health for All, Hunger for None.” As a result of our donations, recipients at the social organizations were able to receive Bayer food supplements alongside their food parcels.

Kinderhaus TIPI
In December 2022 our employees collected a total of CHF 4,300 for the Kinderhaus TIPI children’s home. The donation enabled the children to choose between a fun trip to the zoo or a day in the snow. Kinderhaus TIPI takes in children from infancy to the age of six, who live there in two residential groups. The organization provides loving care to children whose parents are unable to take adequate care of them. 

ToGo opening eyes
In Togo, cataracts are a common yet unfortunately rarely treated eye disease. This clouding of the lens, which often occurs in old age, is usually easy to operate on but many cannot afford to pay the CHF 50 for the surgery. The ToGo opening eyes foundation is trying to change this, and is currently building an eye clinic in Vogan. Last year we donated CHF 5,000 to the foundation.

Kinderstiftung Ulmenhof
The Ulmenhof children’s foundation, previously known as DIE  ALTERNATIVE, provides support to families, adults, and children who find themselves in difficult circumstances in the form of personalized psychosocial services. The goal is to help them learn to live independently and continue to do so in the future. The foundation offers counseling and social services, assisted living, social therapy, and a children’s home, and has locations in Ottenbach, Birmensdorf, and Obfelden in the Canton of Zurich. We donated CHF 1,450 to the foundation in 2022.

Charitable activities

Eden Reforestation Foundation
Since 2021 we have been using the app “eevie – your climate guide.” This app, which was developed in connection with the #climatechallenge project, helps employees reduce their CO2 footprint. The basic principle is that users earn points by making changes to become more sustainable. Employees can then spend these points to support reforestation projects run by the Eden Reforestation Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that is rebuilding natural landscapes in developing countries that have been destroyed by deforestation. In 2022, 531 employees participated in the #climatechallenge project and recorded a total of 19,500 climate actions in the app. This translated  into 3,201 saplings being planted by the Eden Reforestation Foundation. 

National Clean-up Day
In 2022 we participated in National Clean-Up Day for the second time. Around 80 employees picked up trash that was lying around our sites in Zurich and Basel. The Swiss Clean-Up Day is part of the international movement “Let’s Do It!” that was launched in 2008 and organizes global clean-up campaigns to tackle society’s littering problem. 

Tree Planting Event
On September 17, 2022, the first ever Bayer CropScience tree planting event took place in Muttenz. In collaboration with the Schauenburg forestry district, 45 Bayer employees planted around 800 trees. Planting trees helps to bind CO2 on the one hand, and on the other the addition of different tree species promotes biodiversity. Both measures are important in the fight against climate change. Through this planting event we made a contribution to creating a habitat for linden, walnut, and cherry trees as well as pine trees, oak trees, and silver firs, species which are able to better adapt to the new environmental conditions but have previously struggled to establish themselves. The trees planted will bind around 8,000 metric tonnes of CO2 each year, which corresponds to a car journey of around 30,000 kilometers.