Corporate social responsibility
Safeguarding the interests of future generations, while meeting the needs of the present generation
Even if chemistry is not always visible, it can be found in all of the products that shape our everyday life. As a global leader in the manufacturing chain of these commodities we have made sustainability one of our primary long-term goals, integrating it into every area of our business. Our vision and innovation shape the future and Tessenderlo Group constantly strives to further its efforts in sustainability for the benefit of its customers, shareholders, employees and the environment.
The principle of "Sustainable Development" refers to the balance between the environment, economy and society, and we aim to achieve and maintain this in a number of ways:
Tessenderlo Group is a keen contributor to projects such as "Responsible Care" and "VinylPlus, the Voluntary Commitment of the PVC-industry" and we have made a formal commitment to the environmental strategies proposed therein.
Continued research into better technology and more eco-efficient production methods help us to achieve our corporate objective of continually reducing the environmental impact and to improve the working conditions of our employees. Taking advantage of new technologies ("Best available technology") and all available knowledge, we are able to maintain this objective of continually bettering our performance in the areas of safety, health and the environment.
Through open dialogue we wish to assume our responsibility to society by acting as a corporate citizen. We actively give our support to initiatives that encourage the development of science education in the community around us and contribute to the development of local economies through our many industrial settlements worldwide.
By ensuring the environmental sustainability of our products, which can be traced to virtually all aspects of everyday life, such as housing, medicine, agriculture and health, we contribute to an improved standard of living for hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Safety and Health
Tessenderlo Group is committed to protecting and improving the safety, health and general well-being of its employees, customers, suppliers, and neighbors by preventing or limiting its activities and products from affecting people and the environment.
It is our responsibility to ensure that our employees can work in a safe work environment and we are responsible for clearly communicating expectations regarding how to work safely via awareness programs, audits and improvement measures. Tessenderlo Group works to achieve a “zero fatality rate” globally.
Tessenderlo Group’s Safety and Health Policy is integrated into company processes, operations, and systems. The protection of employees, customers, suppliers, visitors, and neighbors against unacceptable risks overrides economic considerations and must not be compromised. In the event of any doubts, the overriding principle of precaution must apply.
Our continuous focus on improving safety and health performance remains the top priority for Tessenderlo Group. The year was dominated by the continuing impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic and consequently employee safety and health risks and performance were heightened. Many business activities continued to be classified as “essential” and, as a result, many of our employees continued operating from our factories and offices in accordance with local legislation. This understandably posed significant organizational and logistical challenges. We reinforced vigorous monitoring and hygiene regimes to safeguard the health of those employees. Our measures were broadly successful and have remained in place to meet national and local statutory obligations. However, our foremost objective remains to ensure that our employees remain safe and healthy and understand, behave, and participate with our commitment to the wellbeing of everyone. We strive to preserve, conserve, and protect the resources we use to conduct our business.
Product stewardship
Tessenderlo Group produces a wide range of products for different kinds of users. With this in mind, it's important to assess the environmental and safety impact of our products, and to make sure that users are informed in a consistent manner about the safety and environmental characteristics of the products.
Particular attention is also devoted to the Europeanchemical substances policy, REACH.
The partnership in VinylPlus is an example of product stewardship for PVC-related products. Other examples are the direct involvement in several recycling initiatives.