SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 03 EDITORIAL 14 LOWER EMISSIONS in STIDSVIG Sludge Remains in a Closed System
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SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 EDITORIAL LOWER EMISSIONS IN STIDSVIG 03 14 Sludge remains in a closed system CONTENT SUSTAINABILITY TWO PROJECTS IN CHINA 04 15 Taking responsibility for people Water treatment at a new level and the environment NEW CONTROL SYSTEM 16 GLOBAL PRESENCE Significant reduction in solid waste 06 Our locations PROGRESS IN MANY WAYS 17 INTERVIEW Environmental performance 07 “We are strongly committed to clean wastewater” SURVEYS AS A SUCCESS FACTOR 18 Promoting exchange and participation INNOVATIONS 10 Fit for the markets of the future EMPLOYEES 19 Headcount development SUSTAINABLE CYCLE 11 From nature to nature SOCIAL COMMITMENT 20 Support, help, donate EFFICIENT PRODUCTION 12 State-of-the-art dryer NEW TECHNOLOGY IN BRAZIL 13 Removing nitrogen anoxically If you see this arrow on the following pages, please click it for more information. GELITA – SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 02 EDITORIAL Dear readers, 2019 was also a very successful year for GELITA. half of 2020. This will enable us to preserve jobs at In particular, we succeeded in increasing production this site and build up a promising future. volumes while achieving measurable improvements in sustainability. The aim of this sustainability report GELITA’s stated mission is “Improving quality of life”. is to inform you about these developments. It shows Every day we create innovative products from natural that we take responsibility for the environment, raw materials that improve health and wellbeing. Our our employees, customers and suppliers very seri- innovations drive our growth. The best example is the ously. In the past year, we have increased in-house world’s first vegan gelling agent in sheet form, which re sources for sustainability and improved our global enjoyed outstanding market acceptance in 2019. In network collaboration. In addition, our GO-Best the future, too, we aim to maintain a high level of operational excellence program is helping to ensure innovation in the area of sustainability, particularly sustainable production. through our new “Biotechnology” initiative. We faced particular challenges in 2019 with the In the course of finalizing this sustainability report, outbreak of African swine fever (ASF) and with the it has become clear that the coronavirus will trig- completion of the clean-up work after the 2018 fire ger an epidemic of global proportions with drastic at our site in New Zealand. Following the devastating consequences for society and the economy. Despite fire, we not only had to dispose raw materials and this additional challenge, we intend to stay on our finished goods as well as operating and auxiliary ma- successful path in 2020 and continue our progress terials, but were also forced to dismantle the majority towards ever more sustainable operations. of the production buildings. We took great care in carrying out these measures to avoid disturbing the surrounding residents and to cause as little inconve- nience as possible. A new production plant for special Dr. Franz Josef Konert gelatine is scheduled to come on stream in the first CEO GELITA AG GELITA – SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 03 SUSTAINABILITY AT GELITA Taking responsibility for people and the environment In an era characterized by extreme ecological standards within the whole company. We also challenges, we strive daily to keep the environ- successfully commissioned new, energy-efficient mental impact of our business activities as low plant technology in Sweden, the USA and Ger- as possible in order to leave a world worth living many last year. In addition, work on expanding in for future generations. This includes signifi- our spray tower capacities is continuing with cantly reducing our energy consumption and the goal of reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions, using water resources respon- the environmental impact of transportation. sibly, and avoiding unnecessary waste. As a globally active company, we develop solutions Verified sustainability at all levels to meet our special responsibility. In light of the growing environmental aware- ness in society, certificates such as ISO 14001 Innovative production processes and ISO 50001 are also becoming increasingly We see our investments in a modern technical important to our customers. Nearly all GELITA infrastructure and the development of inno- locations worldwide are certified in accordance vative production processes as essential steps with ISO 14001. In addition, an energy man- towards making our production processes as agement system complying with ISO 50001 environmentally friendly and safe as possible has been introduced at all German locations. worldwide. Accordingly, after years of conver- Further more, all our production facilities sion and expansion, we inaugurated our plant in are certified according to ISO 9001 (quality Pingyang (China) in 2019. This gelatine produc- management) and FSSC 22000 (food safety). Michael Van Elsacker is a member of tion facility is today the most modern in the Our plant in Memmingen has GMP+ certification the GELITA AG Executive Board and is industry in China, and in some areas also sets (product safety for animal feed). responsible for Operations as COO. GELITA – SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 04 Commitment to animal welfare regular training courses, and increased safety When it comes to sustainability, it is not only awareness. important how production is carried out, but also how the required raw materials are ob- As a global player, we work together with people tained. GELITA manufactures products from an- from a variety of cultures. Empathy and trust imal raw materials and is therefore committed are therefore among our most important values. to a sustainable meat industry. We have been GELITA is committed to the standards of the active supporters of the “ Initiative Tierwohl” in International Labour Organization (ILO) and Germany since 2018, through which agriculture, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Codes. the meat industry and food retailers commit to All our sites are also registered with the SEDEX more animal-friendly meat production. We are (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) collaboration also involved in this issue at European associa- platform. tion level. Since, unlike the meat industry, we as processors of animal by-products cannot rely on We place high demands on our suppliers and the segmentation of the supply (e. g. in the form sales partners. These are summarized in a “Code of premium products with particularly high an- of conduct”. As a company committed to sus- imal welfare requirements), we seek to achieve tainability, compliance also plays an important further development of the legal requirements role for us. This is why we are continuously and thus to strengthen the acceptance of live- enhancing our global compliance system. In stock farming. 2019, we established a whistleblower system. Employees can use it to report serious violations Progress in work safety of rules and laws confidentially and around the The safety and well-being of our employees clock. is our highest priority. It is important to us to create a healthy, attractive working environ- For us, sustainability means securing the future ment with diverse development opportunities. of people and our planet. As a part of the In 2019, we made particularly good advances in GELITA Group strategy, it is integrated into the area of work safety – for example, through our work processes and is also crucial for the incremental improvements in day-to-day work, long-term success of our company. GELITA – SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 05 GELITA has its roots and GLOBAL PRESENCE headquarters in Germany, but is active as a global Our locations company on every conti- nent except Antarctica. With our more than 21 production sites and CHINA sales offices, we are repre- Shanghai Sales office sented in the world’s most THAILAND important markets. SWEDEN Liaoyuan Bangkok Bone Stidsvig Sales office Pig skin Pingyang USA Pig skin GREAT BRITAIN 2,584 Chicago, Illinois THE NETHERLANDS Beef hide EMPLOYEES Pig skin Holmes Chapel Ter Apelkanaal (two plants) Sioux City, Iowa Sales office Functional proteins* Pig skin Pig skin Beef bone JAPAN 22 % Beef hide GERMANY Tokyo Sales office MARKET SHARE Eberbach Beef bone MEXICO Beef hide AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA Case** Göppingen Beaudesert Central raw West Krugersdorp Pig skin 749 BRAZIL Beef hide material Beef hide MILLION EUROS TURNOVER processing Mococa Memmingen Beef hide Bone preparation Leon** Beef hide Maringá Minden NEW ZEALAND Beef hide Pig skin Toluca** Christchurch 36 Beef hide Cotia Sinsheim Speciality Milling / blending Central storage products MILLION EUROS INVESTMENT facility IN OUR LOCATIONS * JV minority share, ** JV majority share GELITA – SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2019 06 INTERVIEW “We are strongly committed to clean wastewater” Interview with Samuel Najafi, Global Coordinator of Environment, Energy and Corporate Social Responsibility, Jan Smet, Global Technology Advisor, and Andreas Spiegel, Head of Energy and Environment at the Eberbach headquarters What role do sustainability issues play for plants. The operation of such plants typically GELITA? consumes a lot of energy. We are therefore Samuel Najafi: The issue is of strategic im- proud that in Eberbach, for example, we have portance for GELITA. Our goal is to reduce the succeeded in improving both the quality and ecological footprint of our production, for energy efficiency of the wastewater treatment example by cutting water and energy consump- process through the use of new