If you have questions regarding registration, submitting a Code declaration or the checking process, you can contact the Code Office via team@deutscher-nachhaltigkeitskodex.de or at +49 30 33842 4888.

Our Code mentors are companies with experience of using the Code from throughout Germany who support interested parties and other users. They talk about their experience of applying the Code at various training events in their local region. Find out more about our mentors and their personal user tips in the map below.

On request, the Code team can provide details of regional training partners offering seminars and information events. They are up to date on the Code and operate independently of the RNE and on their own account. Insofar as suitable parties exist, the Code team also facilitates contact with a company located nearby that has already applied the Code. The Code mentors can offer insight into the practicalities of sustainability reporting and answer questions by drawing on their own experience.

Background: There is a palpable sense of uncertainty among German enterprises because of the EU Directive which came into force in 2017 requiring companies to disclose information regarding environmental, social and labour matters, the upholding of human rights and the prevention of corruption. The so-called reporting obligation does not only affect large companies – it also indirectly impacts small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which have little to no experience of sustainability reporting.

To accommodate the demand from companies for support, the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) developed a Sustainability Code Training Concept. The following three event formats are available:

1. Sustainability Code information event: presentation of the Code’s application as a helpful tool for those new to reporting, real-life examples, Code training concept.
2. Code training: comprehensive preparation on how to compile a declaration of conformity with the Code, including relating to individual criteria and performance indicators.
3. Individualised support for companies throughout the process of drafting a Code declaration, all the way through to its publication.

The events are conducted by Code training partners who have many years of expertise in the area of sustainability and who have participated in in-depth trainer instruction. A free Code Toolbox has been developed in the interests of uniform Code implementation. This covers the topics of sustainability reporting, the EU reporting obligation and standards, and goes into detail on the set of Code criteria.