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Renewi plc Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017 Giving new life to used materials 2/33 CONTENTS SECTIONS OVERVIEW CASE STUDIES 12 Our approach to CSR 03 CEO’s statement 7 Circular coalition 1 We look at three key priorities to achieve our CSR Working in partnership with Renewi customers goals: protecting and preserving the environment; to develop the circular economy keeping our people safe; and making society a 04 About this report 11 Derby and Enerkem Facility better place Using pioneering technology to convert waste 05 Our performance into synthetic gas at our latest site 19 Sustainable Mobility Pledge 17 Environment A project where we share best practices to Renewi is at the heart of the circular economy. 06 Renewi – a new company reduce the carbon footprint of employees 2 What we do We endeavour to protect the world’s resources travelling to and from work Who we are and preserve the planet for future generations, Our unique approach 20 Ocean Cleanup Project through our sustainable activities Driving growth An innovative system to remove plastic waste from our oceans 22 International Safety Day 21 People 29 Governance, compliance Introducing a campaign based on ‘acceptance’ 3 The health, safety, wellbeing and engagement of our and external accreditations to encourage employees to follow best practice employees is key to Renewi’s continued success. 24 Annual Safety Award Our safety record is strong, but we are still seeking Encouraging improvement and innovation to improve further with a number of new initiatives 30 Find out more in health and safety 27 Belgian Sites Open Day Welcoming 4,000 visitors to demonstrate our 25 Society 32 Main offices open-door policy to local communities 4 Renewi actively engages with the local community, 28 Cornelis Prul Award educating people about the work that we do. It is Challenging primary schools to come up vital that we engage with society as a whole and with ideas to tackle waste in a responsible, minimise our impact on our surroundings sustainable way Front cover: We make products from waste such as materials to produce vacuum cleaners made from 36% recycled plastic. See case study on page 7 for mor detail. RENEWI plc Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017 OVERVIEW 3/33 CEO’S STATEMENT We have made a promising start with a strong CSR performance and we have ambitious plans in the pipeline for the coming year Welcome to the first Corporate Social our sites handled, 90% was recycled or are progressing well. Next year, we intend Responsibility Report (CSR) from Renewi plc. recovered for use in new products or energy to increase our investment in innovation. Renewi was born at the start of 2017 from the production. By doing so, we prevented Our target is to participate in 20 innovation merger of two leading recycling companies – more than three million tonnes of carbon projects over a five-year period. The projects Shanks and Van Gansewinkel (VGG). We believe being released into the atmosphere and we will be selected according to their alignment that, together, we can serve our customers, produced more than 172 billion watt hours with our vision, their sustainability impact, and communities and people in an even better way. of green electricity – enough to supply their potential financial returns. 40,000 homes. We are fully aligned in our ambition to operate Future plans sustainably. The former Shanks and VGG We performed well against our safety We also plan to stretch our CSR activities. businesses had aligned visions regarding “waste objectives too. Our people’s safety is our top We have challenged ourselves to work no more” and this has sustainability at its heart. priority and we must do all we can to ensure towards a 95% recycling and recovery rate, We also reported on comparable sustainability they go home safely every day. Our lost time a 10% increase in carbon prevention, and a 60% indicators and set similar types of sustainability injury frequency improved by 5% over the increase in green electricity production targets. This has made it possible for us to produce year. The rate we closed out our “near miss” by 2020. We also aim to reduce both our accident a fully merged Renewi CSR report swiftly. reports with effective plans also improved and lost time injury frequency rates by 25%. by 26%. These positive numbers are thanks We will Our CSR activities focus on three key to Shanks and VGG bringing strong safety We have made good CSR progress as two areas: the environment, our people, and our cultures to Renewi. separate companies. Over the coming year, deliver a CSR local communities. We decided to focus I am confident that we will take the best on these areas after using a structured Building and sharing our expertise in from both former companies to deliver a performance approach to identifying what is material to sustainability is a key part of creating good CSR performance that is greater than the us and our stakeholders. Our CSR activities relations with society. We do this by investing sum of our parts. across Renewi are underpinned by our in innovation. In 2016/17, we focused that is greater purpose: giving new life to used materials. on building our expertise in gasification technologies – a way of converting waste than the sum A proud performance into synthetic gas, which can then be used to I am pleased with the progress we achieved generate electricity. Two gasification-related Peter Dilnot of our parts last year. Of the 15 million tonnes of waste projects, in the UK and the Netherlands, Chief Executive Officer RENEWI plc Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017 OVERVIEW 4/33 ABOUT THIS REPORT Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is central to what we do. It is part of the way we do business. This report gives an overview of our key themes WHAT THIS REPORT COVERS HOW WE DECIDE ON OUR HOW WE PERFORMED 1 This report is designed to give you an overview of 2 AREAS OF FOCUS 3 AND OBJECTIVE SETTING Renewi’s CSR activities. It covers the three key themes As part of our structured approach to CSR, we use a We report on key performance indicators across our around which we focus these activities: sustainability materiality matrix to assess the CSR issues that are priority areas of the environment, our people and society. and the environment; our people and their health, safety important to us as a Group and to our external and internal They are how we define success in the area of CSR. To and wellbeing; and our relationship with society and our stakeholders. The issues have been selected based on ensure we meet our ambitions, we also set ourselves local host communities. Alongside reporting on last year’s guidance from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). We challenging objectives in each of our priority areas. See performance in these areas, we have provided commentary gauge stakeholder views on these issues through regular page 15 for detail on how we set these objectives. on our planned CSR activities over the coming year. See communication. See page 14 for more detail on how we the three main sections of this report for an overview of our select our key performance indicators and priority areas. performance in these key areas. A PERIOD OF TRANSITION GROUP-LEVEL DATA SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS 4 Renewi was formed in February 2017 by the merger 5 As a transitional report, for 2017 we have reported on 6 The performance data and narrative in our CSR of Van Gansewinkel (VGG) and Shanks. Both merger Group-level data only. For our 2018 CSR report we will expand Report is based on the requirements of the Global partners are committed to sustainability and CSR, and it on this and also include divisional performance and more Reporting Initiative (GRI). Our approach to GRI can be viewed is no surprise that both also take a similar approach to detail. Our ability to produce a fully merged report for 2017 is in our GRI navigator document at: www.renewi.com CSR reporting. This is why we have been able to produce a a measure of both merger partners’ focus on CSR. combined CSR report so soon after our merger. However, there are areas where differences in definitions and reporting exist which will take time to integrate – we would rather take the time to do this well than to rush it. This is a transitional report focusing on key areas. Over the coming year we will refine our CSR reporting and objectives setting As Renewi moves through its integration in time for our 2018 CSR report. For more detail of our merger see our annual report at www.renewi.com phase, we will refine our CSR reporting RENEWI plc Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017 OVERVIEW 5/33 OUR PERFORMANCE 15m 90% 69% 3m Our sites handle nearly 15 million Of the 15 million tonnes of waste we We give a ‘second life’ through Our recycling and recovery activities tonnes of waste a year handle a year, 90% is either recycled or recycling 2 to 69% of the waste result in more than 3 million tonnes used for energy recovery1 we handle of carbon avoidance a year 172bn 5% 20% 26% We produce more than 172 billion Our lost time injury frequency We identified 20% more accident near misses, We closed out 26% more accident near-misses watt hours of green electricity a year – improved by 5% over the year giving us nearly 14,000 opportunities to avoid this year, representing 11,000 actions aimed at enough to supply 40,000 homes real accidents preventing accidents 1.