Contribution of Responsible Care and Sustainable Development

Responsible Care – European Awards 2010

“Harmonie” Contribution of Responsible Care and Sustainable Development CHIMEX Le Thillay

▸ APPLICATION FORM: COMPANY NAME: CHIMEX NUMBER OF SITE EMPLOYEES: 220 employees SME ADDRESS: 16 rue Maurice-Berteaux, 95500 Le Thillay, France CONTACT NAME AND TITLE: Sylvie Allart, Trainer Manager TELEPHONE: +33 1 34 04 74 28

EMAIL: [email protected]

PROJECT TITLE: “HARMONIE”, educational project

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT: CHIMEX has initiated a partnership with schools in the town of Le Thillay (Greater Paris region), where its registered office is located.

The primary aim is to be in “HARMONIE” with the local environment of CHIMEX whilst promoting science and scientific study via an educational project.

This educational project has been named “HARMONIE”. It has made it possible to forge strong links between the three schools in Le Thillay and CHIMEX.

The values conveyed by this educational project are involvement, connection and accessibility.

The target group is the eighty pupils of the three final-year classes of junior schools in Le Thillay in the transition period between primary and secondary education.

The project has been prepared in collaboration with the schoolteachers, the inspector of Versailles education authority and the working group comprising employees from the different business lines of CHIMEX. With three major events, it has provided an opportunity to:  introduce the business lines within our company by emphasising the science behind cosmetics,  reiterate the broad principles of sustainable development, and  conduct a scientific experiment in development laboratories with professionals

Our common thread for these three events: ROSEMARY! “From planting to processing into an essential oil” Responsible Care – European Awards 2010

In concrete terms, how did the three events on the CHIMEX site proceed?

1st event in April: Introducing the company

What is CHIMEX? What is its purpose? What is a cosmetic product? What role does it play? From what is it made? How are chemistry and natural products involved in a cosmetic product?

Answers to all these questions were provided by representatives of the working group and, to illustrate the “natural products” section, the children then planted organic rosemary.

2nd event in May: Sustainable development

What does this mean? What definition do the children give? How important is it?

To answer these questions, professionals from HSE spoke about their profession, waste recovery, etc. Responsible Care – European Awards 2010

3rd event in June: Conducting a scientific experiment in a laboratory: extraction of rosemary essential oil

What is extraction? How can the essential oil be extracted using dried organic rosemary leaves?

Using dried sticks of rosemary, CHIMEX chemists performed an extraction and demonstrated how to obtain essential oil. Responsible Care – European Awards 2010

These three events enabled children aged 11/12 years to better understand the company environment and to continue asking questions in the classroom, as testifies Nathalie Favrelle, Headmistress of Ecole les Grands Champs:

“The Harmonie project offered to schools in Le Thillay enabled the children to find out about a business sector that is usually difficult to explore and largely inaccessible for young people. The educational offering of the Chimex team and the quality of the activities on offer during the visits gave the pupils the opportunity to explore numerous topics linked to the national curriculum. The laboratory activities, meetings with professionals and the site visit all immersed the pupils into the working environment and gave meaning to ideas that are often explored in the classroom. Waste recovery, safety rules, complementary of roles, all these concepts then took on a new dimension for our pupils.”

Nathalie Favrelle Headmistress

▸ THE BENEFITS OF THE PROJECT

Reproducibility of the initiative Schools are located in all towns and cities and this is a fantastic opportunity to convey strong messages of socially responsible companies and sustainable development to very large groups of people as children are excellent vectors of communication within the family. They are the adults of tomorrow.

Staff motivation Staff members were involved in and committed to the conduct of this project. They felt useful “in a different way” and enjoyed talking to young people about their assignments.

Transmission of values Reflection of a socially responsible company that is open to its urban environment.

WHAT NEXT... HARMONIE will continue. Faced with the enthusiasm generated by this initiative, CHIMEX wishes to go further and include a green space within the grounds of its site which incorporates themed gardens: scents and colours. These gardens will make it possible to continue the partnership initiated with “Harmonie” in order to contribute to making the children who we meet the SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE GENERATION.