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Cewe publishes Sustainability Report 2014
Cewe invested in two photovoltaic facilities with an energy output of 266 kilowatts at the Freiburg and Munich production sites. Anticipating at least
270 kWh/a of solar energy, which will primarily be available for use in its own plants, the company expects a further CO2 reduction of 112 t/a.
Value-driven policy
on all levels
Cewe’s just published Sustainability Report, which appears for the
sixth year in succession, shows clearly that sustainability is the company‘s third mainstay alongside its Cewe brand and its innovative power. It embodies a holistic concept of entrepreneurial and economic
responsibility, which, apart from aiming to conserve resources and
expand the company‘s social commitment, also covers the promotion
of employees, a focus on innovation and value-oriented management.
In short: Cewe‘s overal objective is to combine ethical principles with
long-term economic success.
For some years now, the Cewe Sustainability Report has been oriented to the
standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in the fields of resource
conservation, climate protection and
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adherence to social and environmental
standards. The latest report was compiled according to the new GRI G4
guideline. “This standard places greater emphasis on the aspect of material-
Dr. Rolf Hollander, CEO of Cewe: ”Alongside the strong Cewe brand and innovative
strength, sustainability is the third pillar of our
Group.”
ity in reporting and also contains new
and revised disclosure requirements in
the areas of governance, ethics, integrity, supply chain, combating corruption
and greenhouse gas emissions”, said
Copyright by INTERNATIONAL CONCTACT 4/2015
Dr. Rolf Hollander, CEO of Cewe. “Accordingly, with the help of a structured
stakeholder survey, we sought an open
dialog with employees, customers, retail partners, authorities and leading
figures from politics, business, science
and non-government organizations
with the aim of preparing a materiality
matrix. The results of the materiality
analysis have been incorporated into
the planning of our sustainability management.”
Carbon footprint
further reduced
In many fields, Cewe managed to further improve its performance indicators
in 2014. For example, the CO2 emissions caused both directly and by electricity consumption fell to 13,244 metric
tons; this is a decline of just under 2
percent compared with the previous
year in which a reduction of
6 percent was achieved. The CO2
emissions from energy consumption
dropped even more markedly (related
to the amount of material used). Compared with the figure of 493 kg of CO2
per ton of material in 2012, there was a
decline in 2013 of 19 percent and in
2014 of a further 14 percent. This means,
says the Sustainability Report, that Cewe is on the right track to generating
higher sales with increasing productivity without consuming more electricity
and gas. In 2014, 709,000 cubic meters
less gas was consumed than in the
previous year, equivalent to a fall of 14
percent. By the end of this year, Cewe
is aiming to reduce gas consumption by
a further 5 percent.
With a decline of 9 percent in the specific electricity consumption compared
with the previous year, Cewe exceeded
its self-imposed target of lowering this
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From left: Andreas F. L. Heydemann, the Cewe Board Member responsible for sustainability, and Dr. Christine Hawighorst, Head
of Public Relations and CSR at Cewe, in dialogue with Professor Jorge Marx Gómez,
Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg,
Department of Computing Science.
figure by 5 percent in 2014. The reduced CO2 emissions fell from 301 kg
to 266 kg per tonne of material used.
With goods supplied, emissions were
reduced by 6 percent compared with
the previous year.
Within the scope of the Carbon Disclosure Pro-ject, Cewe also reports extensively on CO2 emissions resulting from
services provided by third parties. The
latest Sustainability Report focuses on
the logistics processes, which are
shown to have the most significant effect on the environment and can also
be influenced by Cewe. Since 2010, the
company has been using Deutsche Post
DHL‘s carbon-neutral shipping initiative
(GoGreen) for all German mail-order
consignments and for international letters. Because local postal suppliers
have to be used for delivering parcels
outside Germany, the Cewe employees
at the international branches are in
contact with local service providers to
ensure that comparable carbonneutral shipping options are also used
abroad. Since February 2014, Cewe
sends UPS consignments with the logistics service provider‘s Carbon Neutral
Program.
“We are delighted that 2014 was again
a successful year for Cewe,” says Cewe
Board Member, Andreas F. L. Heydemann, who is responsible at Cewe
for sustainability, summing up
the company‘s environmental policy
commitment. “We have also made further progress as regards reducing CO2
emissions and improving the energy
balance.”
Responsibility for people
With a comprehensive community and
social commitment, Cewe underscores
its efforts to assume responsibility for
people within and outside the company. The employees are extensively supported, both with their further training
and education as well as in the leisure
segment with activities in the fields of
health, sport and culture. Furthermore,
Cewe has been audited as a family-friendly company through the Deutsche Hertie Foundation in Germany,
and received an award from TÜV
Rheinland for its outstanding commitment in reconciling family with working
life. This includes, for example, the setting-up of an internal child-care facility
at the Oldenburg site.
There, since 2014, the agenda has also
included the planning of a building
extension that focuses on nature conservation. For example, 144 nesting
boxes for the protection of threatened
bird species were recently installed on
the company‘s site. They were placed
there by Cewe employees, who also
look after them. The next steps include
the setting-up of a nature trail, an insect
hotel and the “close-to-nature” rede2
signing of the company premises.
One important aspect of Cewe‘s corporate responsibility is its social commitment, for example its social partnership with the SOS Children‘s Villages.
The cooperation began in 2013 with the
support of specific projects at the German sites of Germering, Eschbach,
Mönchengladbach and the headquarters in Oldenburg. From there, Cewe
supports the Children‘s Village of Kumasi in Ghana and an emergency response program in the Philippines. The
printing plant in Germering, Germany,
targets initiatives intended to support
the integration of foreign refugees in
the region. In Eschbach, therapeutic
horse riding is promoted in the local
Children‘s Village, and, in the course of
2015, Cewe aims to extend the social
partnership with SOS Children‘s Villages at seven locations outside Germany:
The Czech Republic, Austria, Poland,
Hungary, Belgium, Norway and France
have already been earmarked for speci-fic project partnerships.
Setting an example
for SMEs
Cewe was one of the first companies
listed in the SDAX (Germany‘s Stock
Market Index for SMEs) to publish a
transparent sustainability report. Since
2011, only 20 percent of the 50 SDAX
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Andreas Kluge, Managing Director at the Oldenburg site, and Benedikt Markota,
Divisional Manager for Digital Printing and Print Finishing at the Germering site,
visited the SOS Children’s Village Kumasi in Ghana, where Cewe supports 12 SOS
Families which provide 120 children with a loving home.
enterprises have published a document
of this kind in line with the GRI guidelines. “Cewe is continuously striving to
strengthen the company‘s orientation
towards sustainability,” commented
Dr. Christine Hawighorst, Head of
Public Relations and CSR at Cewe. “By
engaging in intensive dialog with our
stakeholders, we are further raising this
profile.” In April this year, the EU Parliament decided, following the proposal
of the EU Commission, that, from 2017
at the latest, stock market-listed companies with more than 500 employees
must report on key sustainability aspects of their company management.
By conforming to the new GRI G4
guidelines, Cewe already goes further
with its sustainability report than the
EU lays down for the future.
Apart from that, the 2014 Sustainability
Report is characterized by the fact
that, for the first time, an Independent
Insurance Report from BDO AG
Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft has
been drawn up. This means that the
data assume an even greater binding
force than before.
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