Prof. Dr. Ing-habil. Bruno O. Braun, Chairman of the Board of Management of TÜV Rheinland Berlin Brandenburg Pfalz e.V. and the TÜV Rheinland Foundation: “In the ranks of our award winners, the present and future relevance of our cause associated with the award is particularly evident in Reinhold Messner’s work. Through his life’s achievements, Reinhold Messner embodies convincingly and with conviction the respect for creation and humanity’s task to preserve and protect our planet for us and our descendants”.

Reinhold Messner is one of the most famous mountaineers in the world. The jury of the International TÜV Rheinland Compact Award honors with Reinhold Messner, born in South Tyrol in 1944, a prize winner who, with his “Messner Mountain Foundation”, makes the concerns of the mountain peoples his own. He shows ways in which sustainable agriculture and sustainable tourism can be made to work in the mountains of the Himalayas, Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, the Andes or the Caucasus. With his concept “Messner Mountain Heritage”, a chain of museums in the most diverse mountains of the world inspired by him, he strives to reconcile the nature of the mountains with that of mankind.

Messner already fifth prizewinner

Reinhold Messner is the fifth winner of the International TÜV Rheinland Global Compact Award. Every three years, the TÜV Rheinland Foundation awards the prize, which is endowed with 25,000 euros, to personalities who have made a comprehensive commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility in line with the principles of the United Nations Global Compact. In 2017, Dr. Auma Obama, the sister of the former American president, was honored for her services to disadvantaged children and young people in Africa. Other prizewinners include Edda Müller, the former chairperson of Transparency International Germany, the entrepreneur Dr. Michael Otto and the former politician Volker Hauff.

TÜV Rheinland Foundation and Global Compact

In order to promote sustainable development in society and the economy worldwide, TÜV Rheinland has supported the United Nations Global Compact since 2006. The initiative to establish the Global Compact at the 1999 World Economic Forum in Davos goes back to the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. He called on the top representatives of the leading business enterprises to enter into an international alliance in order to anchor principles from the areas of human rights, labor standards, environmental protection and anti-corruption as minimum standards in their companies and to promote them worldwide.

The non-profit TÜV Rheinland Foundation emerged from the TÜV Pfalz Foundation for Safety Technology and Environmental Protection. The foundation is particularly involved in the promotion of technology, environmental protection, education and training as well as sustainable development. The founder is TÜV Rheinland Berlin Brandenburg Pfalz e.V., the sole shareholder of TÜV Rheinland AG, which manages the operational business of the Group. Together with the TÜV Rheinland Foundation, the association and stock corporation form the TÜV Rheinland Group.