Symrise joins UN contract in an effort to be more sustainable
Running over twelve years, the Global Compact is the largest voluntary corporate responsibility initiative in the world with ten basic principles of sustainable and ethical economic activity, such as a ban on child labour, fighting corruption, or the promotion of environmental activities.
Since its creation, the compact has been signed by over 8,000 companies – including many of Symrise’s customers, investors and supplier.
“We share the principles of the Global Compact and have long lived by them at Symrise with our sustainability vision and strategy. Together with other companies, we wish to do our part in making globalization socially and ecologically sustainable,” says Symrise CEO, Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram.
It was back in May that the company published its latest sustainability report announcing its strong focus on global needs and sustainable solutions to offer its customers solutions to the urgent issues of our time with new products and technologies.
The sixth edition of the report underlined the company’s sustainability strategy, progressive developments in 2011 whilst also inviting stakeholder groups to join the discussion on the greener issues.
Challenges
In the report, global megatrends like world population growth and the increasing scarcity of resources were noted as presenting companies with numerous challenges, such as ensuring health and food supplies.
But these trends also offer great opportunities, according to Bertram. “Delivering sustainable added value is a focal point of our entrepreneurial activity, this means that we aim to offer our stakeholders added value along the entire value chain and at the same time open up attractive growth potentials for our company.”
“To do so we collaborate closely with customers, employees, suppliers and partners and make their requirements our own,” he adds.
Progress
In 2011, the fragrance and flavour company reported progress in areas such as environmental care, efficiency and safety.
According to the report, since 2007, overall water consumption dropped by 31 per cent relative to sales volumes, energy consumption also decreased by 23 per cent while relative carbon dioxide emissions were reduced by 23 per cent.
