Climate protection and social responsibility are among the greatest societal and transnational challenges of our time. As a company, we are part of society and, through sustainable business practices, make an active contribution to improving the environment and maintaining social standards. Entrepreneurship means not only responsibility towards our own employees, but also towards our environment and future generations. With our company, we want to make our contribution to the common good and, in doing so, are guided by sustainable, long-term, ecological, social, and economic goals. We want to assume responsibility not only for climate protection, but also to the same extent to individual people. Our focus is on the protection of human rights and compliance with occupational safety.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Diversity, inclusion, and protection against discrimination are guiding principles for us. Good corporate practice encompasses not only the products that are produced and sold, but also the people behind these products. The health, safety, and well-being of individuals are important to us. To underpin our social commitment, we have established a system for maintaining social standards in accordance with the IFS standard. This system includes a Code of Conduct that explains our principles and serves as a code of conduct for us, our suppliers, and subcontractors. The principles contained therein represent minimum standards for our business relationships. It is based on various international guidelines, principles, and laws, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child and Women, the Paris Climate Agreement, and the Supply Chain Act.
SUSTAINABLE RESPONSIBILITY
The environment and the sustainable use of natural resources face various challenges in our professional field, the trade in organic products. The sustainable supply of our customers with high-quality, sustainable products is our greatest ambition. Biodiversity and fair working conditions are a particular challenge, which we address together with our partners and stakeholders. Biodiversity measures are promoted by Naturata. We also want to further expand the existing close cooperation with our partners and stakeholders to guarantee long-term, sustainable availability. Our environmental efforts have been supported by our EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) validation since 2014. Our commitment here goes far beyond legal requirements. Every year, we set new environmental goals and measures, which are documented and implemented in our environmental statement. Regular audits by external, independent auditors confirm our continued development and our commitment.
ECONOMIC RESPONSIBILITY
We are convinced that sustainable economic growth can only occur in corruption-free and fair competition. Therefore, we have implemented compliance guidelines. Compliance with all legal regulations is essential. We actively combat any kind of fraud, bribery, extortion, and other forms of corruption. Compliance with all food-related legislation is a matter of course for us. We conclude clear agreements with our business partners and use a comprehensive risk management system to ensure that our products meet all relevant requirements. Product safety requirements are adhered to and continuously optimized at all relevant steps of the supply chain. Our certification according to the IFS Broker Standard has confirmed this since 2021. This audit ensures that our products comply with the highest legal standards. In this way, we guarantee quality and safety along the entire supply chain for all Naturata products. Regular audits by external, independent auditors confirm this annually.
Supporting nonprofit organizations
We use our status as a pioneer in the organic market to generate a sustainable return, which we use to promote social, environmental issues. With overproduction quantities or goods that are close to the best before date, we regularly support non-profit associations and organizations such as kindergartens, raffles or foodsharing.
Reducing CO₂ emissions
We are committed to reducing our CO₂ emissions by cutting fuel consumption. To this end, we offer our staff driver training courses and behavioural tips for behind the wheel. Our fleet of vehicles has been carbon neutral since April 2015, thanks to the use of climate-neutral fuel cards. Furthermore, Naturata offers financial support to those employees who travel to work by bike, use public transport or practice car sharing. The aim is to create an incentive for more environmentally conscious travel.
Environmentally sound transport
Naturata generally strives to use the most environmentally friendly means and routes of transport possible. One of the environmental goals set out in EMAS is to shorten transport routes. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the raw materials, short transport routes are not always feasible, as is the case with our cocoa, for example. For some products, we are able to offer local alternatives that reach our stores via shorter transport routes (beet sugar instead of raw cane sugar, lupin coffee instead of coffee beans). We work exclusively with organically certified transport companies.
Last but not least
The whole is the sum of its parts. For this reason, we focus on ecologically sound and sustainable behaviour, even regarding minor aspects of our operations. In our day-to-day work, for example, we use only recycled FSC paper and source all our office supplies from a sustainable supplier. These are delivered in re-usable transport boxes which are subsequently returned and used again, in order to avoid packaging waste. In some cases, we have installed demand-actuated switches to control lighting in the company building.