CEO and President: Responsible growth – a fundamental part of our business model Large pressure on natural resources, an ever-increasing demand for food, and a climate that seems to be rapidly changing. The challenges that our planet is facing are many. Responsible behavior is both a shared and an individual obligation, and as a global company AAK takes this very seriously and we strive to do our parts to the highest possible standards. In this Sustainability Report, AAK’s seventh, we present our CSR objectives, activities and achievements. Our main purpose at AAK is to create value-adding vegetable oil solutions together with and for our customers. To succeed with this purpose we use our company program AAKtion to guide us. AAKtion is built upon our model for responsible growth. We define responsible growth as acting responsibly towards all of our stakeholders – investors, global and local customers, suppliers, employees, and the local communities in which we operate. All of our CSR policies and codes are based on the UN Global Compact (UNGC) of which we have been a member since 2002. To drive CSR progress, we focus our efforts in five areas: Marketplace, Supply chain, Environment, Workplace and Community. We set and achieve objectives continuously within all of these areas based on market analyses, our stakeholders’ objectives and our own ambitions and priorities. Corporate social responsibility plays a more significant role today than ever before and we see an increased focus on business practices. Some of the recent sustainability trends that have gained a lot of attention include responsible and transparent supply chains, reductions of GHG emissions, and labour rights – hugely important challenges that are all addressed in this report. Trusted supplier Food safety is a top concern for our customers and their stakeholders, which is consistent with our own priorities. AAK’s production sites are food safety audited and certified in accordance with one or more internationally recognized food safety standards. Ethical supply is another key priority for our customers as well as ourselves. We share our ethical information and ethical audit reports through the Sedex platform. Responsible sourcing of palm oil There is a very strong request from our customers that the sourcing of raw materials is done responsibly, particularly the palm oil. We continue to increase our focus on social and 2 environmental challenges in the supply chain. Our Supplier Code of Conduct addresses important areas such as labour and human rights, environment, and corruption, and is today implemented with all of our direct raw material suppliers. AAK continues to support and be fully engaged in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The RSPO requirements have by some been criticized for not effectively addressing deforestation itself and the GHG emissions caused by deforestation and plantation on peatlands. AAK’s own sustainable palm oil policy anyhow outlines our commitments on sustainable palm in general and specifically requirements for no deforestation and no development on peatlands. We are very satisfied with the strong progress on the implementation of our policy, and especially on our traceability to mill, our supplier risk assessment process, and our commitment to help to transform the supply chain. Responsible sourcing of shea kernels Our persistent work in West Africa towards a more sustainable and efficient supply chain benefits both AAK and the hundreds of thousands of women collecting shea kernels. Our Kolo Nafaso program, which started out as a project in 2009, focuses on support, interest-free micro credits, training and trading directly with those women, and the program continues to progress. During the season 2015/16, more than 90,000 women joined, exceeding our expectations by more than 20,000 women. We will continue to develop this very successful program and enroll more women in the upcoming years. Resource efficiency Despite shifting our focus to more specialized and advanced products that in general require significantly more resources per produced unit, our overall resource efficiency has improved markedly for a number of years now. 2015 was no exception. Energy consumption, calculated per MT produced, decreased by 5.8 percent while water consumption was
Hållbarhetsrapport 2015/2016
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