ENVIRONMENT
1. BRANDRUP products are durable.
All original BRANDRUP products are designed to last and accompany the vehicle throughout its lifetime. We don't manufacture cheap "disposable products" that place excessive and unnecessary strain on our environment.
That's why, 40 years ago, when the statutory warranty period was 6 months, we offered a 3-year warranty for BRANDRUP products.
Our development and quality assurance processes are so well structured and organized that our complaint rate over the years has averaged less than 0.0013%.
This is good for our customers because they can rely on BRANDRUP products and enjoy them for a long time.
This is also good for our retail partners, who generate satisfied customers with BRANDRUP products.
It's also good for us because the effort we put into producing excellent products is still cheaper than returns and reputational damage. And last but not least, our environment is a winner: resources for necessary accessories are generally consumed only once per vehicle's lifetime.
For the sake of the environment, we also optimized packaging from the outset and avoided visual, resource-consuming embellishments. We will also stop providing paper instruction manuals by mid-2025: All necessary information can be found on our website anytime, anywhere in the world.
2. BRANDRUP Operations
2.1 Buildings
All production and storage halls are constructed in the most environmentally friendly way possible, and care was taken to use as little cement/concrete as possible during construction. The load-bearing columns and roof framework of the production halls were built from local timber, and only the structurally essential reinforcements were made from recyclable steel. The walls are constructed from recyclable sandwich panels.
The main warehouse also has all side walls made from local timber.
2.2 Shelters for Vehicles/Machinery/Equipment
All additional storage buildings for vehicles/equipment have walls and roof structures made from local timber, and the roofs from recyclable sheet metal. The floors are not sealed, but paved or even secured with gravel and no concrete.
2.3 Rainwater
2.3.1 The floors of all our parking lots and almost all outdoor areas are not sealed, but paved so that water can pass through; previously, these floors were all sealed and asphalted. For this purpose, we removed the existing seals and repaved them.
2.3.2 Since our operation does not produce any exhaust fumes, emissions, etc., rainwater from all roofs and outdoor areas does not have to be drained into the public sewer system and thus removed from the local natural environment, but is instead returned to the forest and pastures.
In increasingly dry periods, we try not to waste water and leave it for the living.
2.4 The business and residential areas have a completely self-sufficient water supply.
We produce drinking/process water from our own good and clean forest drinking water spring, which is located approximately 30 meters higher than our buildings, so that the gradient is sufficient for sufficient pressure, and we do not need an additional pump or energy for transporting it to the consumption points and supplying them. The overflow from the spring flows into five bio-ponds.
We discharge our wastewater into the public sewer because, unfortunately, when we moved here, our wish to have our own biological wastewater treatment plant, which could have been easily built, was prohibited due to the commercial nature of the business.
2.5 BRANDRUP generates 70–80% more "green" PV power than it consumes.
We generate the electricity for all production, materials/shipping warehouses, administration, development, residential buildings, and heating systems with rooftop PV systems and (as of 2023/2024) generate an average of between 70–80% more "green electricity" than we consume in the entire complex per year. The surplus is sold, which not only benefits the environment but also helps maintain our production in Germany, which is very expensive compared to foreign locations. The purchase of electricity when roofs are covered in snow in winter is, of course, taken into account.
From January 2022 to September 2025, we saved 318,842 kg of CO2 emissions with our PV systems, which would be equivalent to planting 9,516 trees.
2.6 BRANDRUP Complex: Self-sufficient heating/hot water supply.
The heating and hot water supply are completely self-sufficient, thanks to a wood chipping system in which the naturally occurring windfall/beetle-infested wood from our 18-hectare forest is carefully processed using our machines and by us; only the wood chipping itself is done on a contract basis. To date, we have only very rarely purchased wood chips, and only when there was not enough beetle-infested wood and windfall wood, and we did not want to destroy healthy trees.
3. Our Nature
3.1 Our forest should become a true mixed forest.
When acquired in 2001, the 18 hectares of forest consisted of pure, sterile spruce monoculture, subsidized in the 1960s. We are slowly converting this "commercial forest" to a mixed forest and have already achieved remarkable results: Nature is spontaneously replacing the worm-infested/broken spruce trees we removed with beech, oak, maple, alder, birch, hazel, raspberry, wild strawberry, etc. – all trees and plants that grew wild before 1960 and whose seeds are still present in the soil but are also brought by birds.
Learning from the ancient Romans of the Rhineland and from conversations with a widely traveled forester, we tried to establish only the relatively heat-resistant sweet chestnut, and it worked – the chestnuts are thriving very well. From the landscapers in Munich/Unterföhring, along our old "dog walking path" along the Isar Canal, we learned that the cornelian cherries, which have since disappeared from our area, are thriving. The fruits not only taste delicious as jam, but also ensure the survival needs of bumblebees and early insects because they are always the first to bloom. So we planted some in an orchard, which developed magnificently and reproduced on their own.
3.2. Our hay meadows: Habitat and food for wildlife and insects.
The three hay meadows, totaling 6 hectares and surrounded by forest, are not fertilized with chemicals or manure and are only mown for the first time in July/August, so that fawns, bunnies, the young of ground-nesting birds, and the reproduction of many wild plants have a chance.
When mowing, a strip of land approximately 5 meters wide along the edge of the forest is left unmowed so that bushes, nettles, thistles, and the like can reestablish themselves in front of the forest, providing protection from the sun and wind and food and shelter for wildlife.
The unexpected and pleasing success lies in the fact that we are probably the only area in the area that has no problems with deer browsing on young trees. The deer have sufficient species-appropriate food here and are not forced to feed on young tree shoots.
We have also asked our hunting leaseholders not to shoot deer in our meadows, so that they do not constantly stay hidden in the forest out of fear and then end up eating the young shoots. They find better food at the edge of the forest and in the meadows and naturally accept it. To reduce the population, we have lynx – with which, after years of reintroduction, no one has any "mental problems" anymore – and hopefully soon wolves, whose natural habitat was the Bavarian Forest for millennia, until the landowners believed they alone had the right to exercise hunting rights: Poachers were pilloried but also punished with death, and wolves, bears, and lynx were eradicated; deer, wild boars, etc., multiplied unchecked and, to the delight of the hunting rights holders, became their sole prey...
3.3 BRANDRUP waters and their edges are habitats for fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, mammals, etc.
When we acquired the property, it had five connected fish breeding ponds, which are supplied with clean water from the overflow of our forest drinking water spring.
Four of these ponds will be left to themselves, to the fish, toads, frogs, snakes, beavers, wild ducks, pond mussels, crayfish, plants, etc. We only intervene if damage occurs due to fallen trees, leaky river banks, etc.
We transformed the fifth pond into a small lake of approximately 5,000 m² with 0.5 m deep shallow areas for fish to spawn, a small island covered with wild shrubs and trees for the incoming waterfowl to raise their young "fox-proof," and a larger 5 m deep area.
All non-native fish introduced by the previous owners were removed. We have only introduced a few native fish that were previously absent but beneficial to the habitat. The remaining fish, as well as the existing pike and perch, came with the arrival of wild ducks and help to maintain a natural balance in the population – no fishing is carried out.
3.4 Reintroduction of native pond turtles (Emys orbicularis)
Our ponds flow into a small river, the Wolfsteiner Ohe, which flows into the larger Ilz River, which then flows into the Danube near Passau.
We are trying to reintroduce southern German pond turtles (Emys orbicularis). These were brought to Bohemia as Lenten food in the late Middle Ages, significantly depleting the previously large, natural population. In the 1960s, land consolidation and the massive drainage of agricultural land finished them off.
Because pond turtles are peaceful, harmless creatures to humans, they rarely generate sensational media reports, so politicians have so far seen no useful reason to take care of them. So we did it without saying a word about it.
Pond turtles are among the oldest living creatures and were native to what is now Bavaria long before humans. Aside from their ancestral right to life in our waters, pond turtles are useful, for example, they eat sick fish and thus prevent the spread of disease, and they eat mosquito larvae and insects, which, when overpopulated, can easily spread diseases to fish, animals, and humans.
For this purpose, we acquired genetically tested and microchipped original Bavarian parent animals years ago from a breeding veterinarian in the Allgäu region and from the reptile rescue center in Munich. We hope that they will breed well and find companions. Turtles are quite local. However, if they wish to migrate, they can travel through our adjacent waterways to join their remaining companions in the Danube and perhaps even to the nature reserve near Vienna, where they still have many free-living relatives.
Nature is very important to us. Since we consume nature through our existence and our business and contribute to its degradation, we try to at least use the available resources as carefully as possible and offset the damage we cause with our own voluntary measures. We also try to continually give nature and wild animals back a little of the opportunity to thrive, taking less and less for ourselves.