“Foremost, it is important for companies to get into an active dialogue with its employees in order to convince them of the necessity to act respectfully with regard to our planet. Without dialogue and conviction, all CSR reports and codes of conduct are merely pieces of paper” says Raymond Opszalki, HR Director at DIS AG but what can companies positively do to respect of our planet? At Tetrapak they really care for the environment, as Mr. Cazzarolli explains:”We believe in responsible industry leadership, creating profitable growth in harmony with environmental sustainability and good corporate citizenship”, and continues:”Our strategy works in order to reduce CO2 emissions. We optimize our energy consumption thanks to our building automation system. We invest in renewable energies, installing solar and photovoltaic panels that produce green energy”. At Tetrapak they also work with mobility management, as Mr. Cazzarolli explains: ”Today our bus shuttle is part of the urban transportation of Modena and an average of 50 employees use this service every day” and reveals the company’s ultimate goal:”Our ultimate goal is that all wood fibre in our packages shall come from certified forests, managed in accordance with principles of sustainable forest management. In 2010, the 80% of our packages had the FSC Certification”.

At Eurofirms they believe that companies can do a lot by spreading a value of respect within their staff as the manager Miguel Jordà says:”Companies can act as spearheads promoting solid values between staff, both in executive and non-executive profiles. One of these values is respect. If we stimulate all company employees to share the value of respect, this also translates to an increased respect towards people, towards the culture, the environment” and adds:”This consists of a very effective and very meticulous work at the same time. If we perform a very careful selection of every employee in the company, and we adopt a good behavior to instill some values, including respect, all employees, down to the last person in the company, they will adopt a respectful attitude towards everything that surrounds them”, At CB Richard Ellis environment respect is taken very seriously as Deirdre Bodley, HR Director tells us:”In our case CB Richard Ellis has made a clear demonstration of its leading role, by becoming the only company in our sector to achieve carbon neutrality, thanks to the collective efforts of individuals and teams across the globe“ and adds:“In EMEA, we have contributed to reducing our carbon footprint significantly: over 90% of our offices now have recycling programmes in place and innovative local office initiatives are helping us become even more environmentally responsible“, but according to Ms. Bodley there’s still a lot to be done, she also tells us:“For example in Dublin our office lighting system comes on through movement, so that energy is not wasted“.

At Admiral Group they have put in place various initiatives to respect the planet. Ceri Assiratti,  HR Director shares:“Environment is more important to us than ever. We have recycling schemes, nobody has waste bins, we all have recycling points in every office, we are creating a new building and we want to make sure that is the more environmentally friendly possible”. They also work with mobility as Mr. Assiratti reveals:”We have also started a bike scheme so that people can avoid using their own transport, and we are also promoting a lift scheme, for which we try to fill a car instead of having people using many different cars when moving for business”. ”As a strategic goal for 2012, we will have all our factories where insulin is produced powered by wind energy” says Patrizia Fogheri HR Director at NovoNordisk, and continues:”In our small world we try to change things, for instance, we changed our “car policy”, all our cars have CO2 emissions limits, so that not only the lease payment makes a difference but also the reduction of CO2 emissions does. We are also providing a policy to reduce travel costs and the impact of air travel” and finally adds:”We also do a campaign with zero CO2 which certifies all the materials that we produce”. At Telefonica they recognize the impact they have on the environment, as Simon Linares states: ”Telefonica recognises that its business has an impact on the environment – hence, we offer business smart technology and flexible working which deliver significant carbon savings“ and makes an example:“ur new Telefónica European HQ in the UK was built with sustainability at its heart for example rainwater is captured and used for watering the plants and trees around the building. Pull printing will reduce the amount of paper and toner we use by at least 25 per cent.

It will also reduce our annual CO2 emissions by 113.5 tonnes“. Some companies recognize  the importance of leading a sustainable business, for some other companies sustainability is at the heart of their mission as explains Danone’s HR Director Tanja Neuser:“Here at Danone, sustainability is very much in the heart of our mission“ and explains:“We have taken three main goals the first one is reducing our CO2 footprint, we have 2 areas where CO2 has the biggest impact and they are logistics, so we want to replace the use of trucks with the use of trains, the second area is PET, which is a high contributor to CO2, and here we have projects running, in which we try to use more and more recycled PET. The other 2 ambitions are 1) water preservation with access to pure drinking water, we do this in collaboration with UNESCO and UNICEF and 2) the protection of our core products, we work very closely with the local environment, we want to do our business in a very sustainable manner, specially in this area in which we have a direct impact on nature“.

For the nature of the business at Timothy James Consulting the impact is less heavy, however as Peter Bennet, Owner of the company says:“We recognize that any smal thing could make a difference, so we makes sure that we do not waste paper printing documents, we makes sure that all equipment and lights are turned off when we leave and we encourage employees to recycle“, and for the future he reveals:“We try to cut on travelling to reduce our emissions, we encourage people to use public transport instead of their own cars“.