Bayer CropScience LP and North Carolina State University (NCSU) formalized a far-reaching collaboration today. Pascal Housset, president and head of the Environmental Science business operations unit at Bayer CropScience, presented Johnny Wynne, Ph.D., NCSU’s dean of the College Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), with a $1 million endowment to establish a Chair of Sustainable Development.
When Housset addresses NCSU’s sustainability symposium, entitled Stewards of the Future: Research for Global Sustainability Tomorrow, NCSU’s burgeoning new sustainability programs figure to be hot topics of discussion.
“We are honored to have Bayer as a collaborator in our research efforts to find solutions to the complex problems that issues like global climate change, population growth, and food and water shortages present,” said Wynne. “Under Pascal Housset’s leadership, Environmental Science has discovered new and innovative ways to marry business and the environment, to the benefit of both.”
Vital to the sustainability culture that Housset has worked hard to cultivate at Environmental Science is the notion that partnering – in this case with academia –is critical to success.
“We cannot achieve our goals alone. That is why the research expertise of North Carolina State makes the university an ideal choice,” Housset said. “It is within our power to achieve great success for our company while effecting critical change that will benefit society as a whole. It is simply essential to protect the world in which we live and work. Together with the university, we will take great strides in that direction.”
Engaging in collaborations with results that go far beyond its campus borders is nothing new for NCSU.
“It [partnering] is an important part of who we are,” Wynne said. “Here at NCSU we have a long history of such collaborations in the public and private sector.”
Those collaborations have produced more than 70 start-up companies and a NCSU portfolio consisting of more than 600 patents. NCSU partnership activities also include 61 corporations and government agencies that employ more than 1,500 employees who work alongside NCSU researchers.
The sustainability culture that Environmental Science shares with NCSU is reflected throughout the company internally and externally through various business practices that include the development of new products dedicated to reducing carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere by promoting plant health.
“As the world becomes more conscious of the climate change crisis, demand for products that meet the dual needs of business and the environment increases,” Housset said. “Events such as the NCSU symposium provide a wonderful opportunity to enlist the help of the academic and research communities to support those dual objectives. All of us at Environmental Science are excited about this new chapter in our collaboration with NCSU.”
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, nutrition and high-tech materials. Bayer CropScience AG, a subsidiary of Bayer AG with annual sales of about EUR 5.8 billion (2007), is one of the world’s leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of crop protection, non-agricultural pest control, seeds and plant biotechnology. The company offers an outstanding range of products and extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture and for non-agricultural applications. Bayer CropScience has a global workforce of about 17,800 and is represented in more than 120 countries.
