Dedication and fun Sustainability is much more than just a question of an inner attitude: it needs to be practised both in the company and outside the workstore. With a regular programme of campaigns, Gira wants to offer its employees the opportunity to actively make their professional and private everyday lives more sustainable. This includes activities that allow them to become involved in conservation projects, accept social responsibility or learn how to use resources with a heightened awareness of costs. The projects should also be fun, they also offer the opportunity to get to know colleagues from other working areas and to gain new, valuable experience.

Regular trainee campaigns The projects for the Gira trainees are a central element of the company's volunteer programme. They offer the trainees the opportunity to get involved in a social project or an environmental protection campaign.
The trainees are given one free working day per year for their involvement. The special thing about it is that the voluntary non-profit day is treated and paid for as a regular working day. In this way Gira wants to encourage trainees to make a contribution to society whilst expanding their social and environmental knowledge.

Environmental project for trainees The project "Developing the Timmer pond biotope" is an exemplary environmental protection project. As part of this project the trainees were able to help extend and improve a wildlife sanctuary zone at the Timmer Teiche biotope in Radevormwald. They were involved in clearing and planting along the banks and in the surrounding area. They also built two bridge crossings as well as another supply channel from the stream. The trainees took part with great enthusiasm and energy - all on a voluntary basis. Further participation days are planned for this project.

Social projects for trainees The social projects included, for example, the "Christmas in a shoe box" project in 2014. This is the title of a major gift campaign for children in need in German-speaking countries. The trainees first very successfully mastered the challenge of convincing selected departments to participate in this charity campaign: the interest was tremendous. A total of 42 shoe boxes that the trainees obtained from a local shoe shop and decorated for Christmas were filled by employees in Marketing, HR, In-House Sales, Main Office and the postal service as well as by the Gira trainees themselves.
They contained clothing, furry animals, toys and school items, toiletries and sweets that are sure to have made the children in need that received them very happy. The campaign was so well received that in 2015 the company and its trainees started its own campaign in a similar form - the Gira Christmas miracle" that mainly benefited refugee children in the Bergisches Land region of Germany.

Promoting car pools One example of a successful employee project is the "Car pools to Gira" campaign. Participants can save petrol and protect the environment. Of course, the aspect of interpersonal relationships should not be forgotten, either: The daily journey to work offers the opportunity for colleagues to get to know each other better and make new friends. This obviously means that people who are interested in starting a car pool and have a similar journey to work have to get together. Gira came up with an employee project to lend a helping hand. Especially in view of the limited car parking area near the company, car pools can help relieve the parking situation. Gira supports all car pools with a separate, allocated parking space on the company's premises so that time-consuming searches for a space every morning are a thing of the past.