CEO Statement by Arne Frank AAK Responsible Growth | 1 Welcome to the AAK Sustainability Report 2012/13. With this, our fourth sustainability report, we aim to present our important corporate social responsibility (CSR) objectives, initiatives and activities in a transparent way. Responsible growth is one of the corner stones of the AAK Acceleration strategy, and is essential to our aspiration to be our customers’ first choice in value-added vegetable oil solutions. For us, responsible growth is about acting responsibly towards all our key stakeholders – the local communities in which we operate, our global and local customers, employees, investors and suppliers. Pressures on natural resources and the consequences of global warming are growing in severity. These will be compounded by the anticipated rise in global population of two billion people by 2030, along with an expected increase in average calorific consumption per capita. To us, this makes responsible behaviour everyone’s duty, including companies, governments and individuals. Model for responsible growth Our model for responsible growth is based on the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact along with our corporate policies and codes. To drive progress, we focus our efforts within five specific areas: Marketplace, Supply Chain, Environment, Workplace and Community. In each of these, we continually set and deliver on ambitious objectives, and benchmark our performance both internally and externally. The model guides our global and local organisations in their pursuits of responsible business growth. When welcoming new additions to the AAK family through acquisitions, the model is used to align business practices with responsible growth. New members may have standards that differ from AAK’s, and whilst this sometimes inspires us to improve ours, we normally align them to the AAK way. We have found that the best recipe for success is to have clear objectives and share best practices in a structured fashion. Food safety Numerous surveys indicate that food safety remains the top concern amongst consumers and our customers. That conforms to our own view. During 2012, all AAK production sites were food safety audited and certified in accordance with one or more internationally recognised food safety standards. Sustainable sourcing Another area where we endeavour to make a clear difference is raw material sourcing. To this end, our Supplier Code of Conduct guides all direct raw material suppliers so that fundamental principles of labour and human rights, environment and anti-corruption are respected. In West Africa, we have been working closely for many years with the women in rural areas who gather wild shea kernels. We steadily strive towards a more sustainable and efficient supply chain, at the same time improving the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of West African women. In 2011, we established a shea partnership with DANIDA (Danish government´s aid organisation), the government of Burkina Faso, NGOs and L’Oréal. This partnership is progressing better than planned, and we are well on the way to achieving our objective of training 30,000 women and trading directly with them in accordance with fair trade principles. We continue to be very engaged in the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (“RSPO”), and its board. While occasionally being criticized, the RSPO is in our opinion still the best positioned body to promote and ensure continuous improvements in the palm oil industry. We also continue to be engaged in GreenPalm, an excellent tool to ensure support also to the independent smallholders, who often need a financial incentive to be convinced to comply with RSPO rules. Resource efficiencies We are simultaneously growing our business and pursuing a strategy of shifting focus toward more value-added (and thus more refined) products. We are aware that more refined products in general require more resources per produced unit, which challenges our ability to enhance our global resource efficiency, and to document it. Despite this challenge, we have managed to keep our energy consumption per produced unit at the same level as last year, and decreased our global greenhouse gas emissions per produced unit. A significant contributing factor has been the shift at our production sites from the use of oil to natural gas as a fuel. Our consumption of water has increased over the years as a result of acquisitions, reallocation of production and the expansion of activities that require intensive cleaning. Employee safety Employee safety was made a top priority for AAK in 2012. We are committed to ensuring that our employees stay safe and healthy while they are working for our company. Despite our best efforts, our global Lost Time Injury Rate remained at the same level as the year before. However, we are happy to report that our Lost Day Rate (a measurement of the severity of incidents) have improved by over 60 percent compared to the baseline when we started monitoring this globally in 2009. We are resolved to further strengthen our efforts to improve safety, and have designated 2013 as the year for a focused and elevated safety initiative, raising the bar and implementing new safety measures globally. Engaging locally As a global company, AAK contributes to the development of the local communities in which we operate by creating jobs, paying taxes and doing business with local enterprises. However, we have found that we can make a significant difference by engaging in local communities in a variety of different ways. I am pleased to see the many ways in which our employees truly engage with their local communities, although only a small fraction of these are presented in this report. Local communities outside Western Europe and USA are particularly prioritized. Raising the bar In this new Sustainability Report 2012/13, we are proud to present the significant progress made and the challenges overcome during the last year across our five focus areas. Going forward, we will continue to focus on growing the business responsibly by applying our AAK Acceleration strategy and our model for responsible growth. We are strong believers in continually striving to further improve our model. A dynamic model such as this evolves as we gain new knowledge and the external environment changes. I expect a continued and strong focus on sustainable sourcing of raw materials, resource efficiency and employee safety. Responsible growth is a key part of our way of doing business. Arne Frank
AAK Responsible Growth 2012-2013 - UK
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