Sustainability@Heart: Change starts with us

Everyone is talking about #sustainability. Everything is supposed to become more sustainable. Some would even call the term a “buzz word”. It’s omni-present. But to address the enormous global sustainability challenges, we need more than words. We need a clear strategy and an action plan. We need to integrate sustainability into every aspect of our value chain. It must be integral to how we do business. It starts with words; it ends with actions.

Sustainability: an enormous task and an enormous opportunity that we can only achieve if all of our 52,000 colleagues take action, no matter where they work and what they do at Henkel. Only together, with everyone’s contribution, can we turn sustainability into a key differentiating factor in our industries. Only together can we make a positive impact – as expressed in our company #purpose: Pioneers at heart for the good of generations. The days when sustainability was the task of a small team of experts are long gone. It also is our role as Henkel to enable everyone with the right knowledge and tools to act. But how to get people involved? By rolling out a dedicated engagement program!

From Ambassadors to Pioneers

We want to ensure that sustainability is in our colleagues’ hearts and minds every day. Henkel recognized early on how important it is to involve all employees. In 2012, we were one of the first companies in our industry to start a Sustainability Ambassador program. The program offered our teams trainings as well as shared ideas and knowledge on how they can contribute to a better world. Over 50,000 employees have participated. Building on this strong foundation, we are now ready for the next level of engagement. Aiming for a more holistic approach, we launched the Sustainability@Heart initiative to inspire and empower our colleagues to engage themselves even more. From sustainability ambassadors to sustainability pioneers.

The Sustainability@Heart program offers a wide range of tools with three goals:

?? to inform by offering industry news, publications, audio, video and graphic material

?? to learn by offering trainings to enhance knowledge and skills to make sure people understand how to integrate those in their everyday life

?? to connect by offering the right contacts, groups and options to engage socially.

?The program is designed as an interactive platform that supports ideas, provides the opportunity to network and highlights examples of how we at Henkel live and breathe sustainability. It offers background information on our sustainability strategy and positions on critical issues to enable employees to talk about our goals and activities with others. The program also offers a range of upskilling trainings for everyone – from beginners to experts. To expand their knowledge, employees can participate in a foundational training and earn a?certificate from?our partner IESE Business School. For those with specific interests, we provide topic-related trainings on issues like energy consumption, packaging circularity and human rights. Colleagues who are ready to experiment with concrete ideas will even be able to explore these together with other motivated peers in our new sustainability incubator lab. Our employees are also invited to join one of the many existing projects worldwide that need voluntary support, which can be found at-a-glance on the new platform. These are only a few examples of what our new Sustainability@Heart initiative has to offer – the list goes on.

We believe that living our purpose and pioneering mean thinking outside of the box, finding new solutions for current and future challenges. Knowledge and skills are essential in achieving our ambition, and with better knowledge come new ideas, new perspectives, and new approaches to creating more sustainable value. Change starts with every one of us, with each member of the Henkel community contributing to a bigger goal.

If you want to find out more about Henkel’s sustainability strategy and goals – here, you will find all information.