2022 was a year that changed many things. The war in Ukraine caused long-term damage to value chains, which were previously considered to be secure. Shortages in the fields of energy and raw materials were a threat to maintaining deliveries to customers. Nevertheless, we managed to secure the continuity of our production operations by implementing alternative heat sources to minimize our dependency on gas. We also prepared our heat production facilities for the use of renewable energy sources and commissioned photovoltaic systems on our South Asian sites.
climate actions
Over the past 3 years, we have invested more than 100 million euro in the sustainable renovation of our production facilities around the globe, as well as in the development and production of innovative and sustainable paper solutions. Hence, we have managed to make progress on our roadmap to net zero – a key element of the delfort sustainability strategy. We signed the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) Net-Zero Standard. By setting ourselves the goal of carbon neutrality, we are going significantly beyond the mandatory targets currently in place and have even decided to focus on the reduction of emissions in Scope 3, in addition to those in Scopes 1 and 2. In 2022, we managed to reduce both specific GHG and NOx emissions, which are our customers’ Scope 3 emissions.
sustainable products
Our product development strategy is another important means of supporting our customers along their green journey, as it forms the foundation of a circular economy. We always make sure that we use as few raw materials as we can, providing customers with the lightest, thinnest papers possible. Lighter paper means less pulp, lower weight, reduced transportation space and less waste.
empower people
However, we would not be able to reach our goals without our valued employees. We continued implementing the special delfort training program, introduced our labor and human rights policies, made progress in offering all employees access to annual development reviews and leveraged our occupational health and safety initiatives to ensure a safe workplace. As a result, we recorded less work-related injuries in 2022 than we did in the previous year.
We received further confirmation that we are on the right track with our sustainability strategy as we won the EcoVadis Platinum award for outstanding performance in labor and human rights, the environment, ethics and sustainable procurement – for the second time in a row..
The new CSR report describes in detail what we have achieved, but we are all aware that this is only the beginning of our journey.
Have an enjoyable read!
