Private commitment becomes HERMES commitment
Ricardo Alves is a member of various nature conservation organizations, including the Landesbund für Vogelschutz (LBV), Greenpeace and the Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU).
It is very important to him to support nature conservation organizations actively or passively with donations or membership fees. Ricardo Alves is actively involved in nature conservation as a nature conservation instructor in the Ohlstadt Mountain Rescue Service and as a nature conservation examiner at the annual nature conservation examinations of the Bavarian Mountain Rescue Service. He also offers nature, herbal and sound/nature walks under his own label RAuszeitklang.
“In my view, one of the most important tasks is to protect nature and preserve biodiversity. To get people excited about nature (conservation) and to show that leisure, people and nature can function in harmony.”
He succeeded in doing this with the HERMES employees! Ricardo Alves has been collecting defective cell phones from friends and through the mountain rescue service for many years. Formerly for the Landesbund für Vogelschutz and since 2021 for NABU.
Disposing of cell phones with household waste is harmful to the environment and is therefore prohibited by law. In addition, many rare raw materials are lost and new ones have to be mined unnecessarily. As a result, NABU and the Telefónica Deutschland Group have been working together since 2011 to protect the environment by collecting old mobile devices and their accessories and then recycling them or disposing of them in an environmentally friendly manner. For the cell phones collected, Telefonica donates a fixed sum to NABU each year, which goes into the NABU insect protection fund.
HERMES colleagues have already supported Ricardo Alves’ commitment and donated their cell phones. These colleagues gave him the idea of collecting throughout the HERMES Group:
To mark Earth Day on April 22, 2022, Ricardo Alves launched the “Mobile Phones for Bumblebees, Bees & Co” campaign to support biodiversity in conjunction with NABU.
Boxes for collecting cell phones and accessories were set up at all HERMES locations. As the original collection boxes are in high demand and were therefore sold out for a long time, Ricardo Alves quickly designed and provided his own promotional boxes made from former first-aid kits.
Since its launch, a total of 11.3 kg of smartphones, 8.3 kg of cell phones, 2.1 kg of tablets and 2.8 kg of power adapters and chargers have been collected and donated at all HERMES locations by August 2022.
With this campaign, Ricardo Alves has also succeeded in raising our employees’ awareness of nature conservation.
