Weleda wins the Swiss Ethics Award

An the Swiss Enterprise Conference, the Swiss Excellence Forum presents the Swiss Ethics Award every two years. The award goes to projects that set new ethical standards in the field of business

This year's winner, Weleda, places respect for people and nature at the heart of its business activities. Social and ecological criteria in the procurement of raw materials were also the focus of the winning project of the natural cosmetics and medicines manufacturer. Fair trade and the preservation of biodiversity are the goals here. The company has been a member of the non-profit organisation Union of Ethical Biotrade (UEBT) since 2011 and implements its complex standards - as the only company in Switzerland. Membership obliges the company to implement a biodiversity management system. This not only aims to preserve biodiversity, but goes much further: profits must be shared fairly along the supply chain, socio-economic sustainability must be ensured, regulations must be observed and the people involved must be respected.

According to the jury of ethicists and representatives from business, science, theology and politics, Weleda deserves the award for so much commitment. The straightforwardness and consistency with which Weleda fulfils its responsibility towards people and the environment, and its courage to engage in potentially controversial and open-ended learning processes in the process, is recognised by the jury as an outstanding achievement. Incidentally, the idea for the company's pioneering strategy did not come from the boardroom - the impetus for it came from the purchasing department.

International cooperation
Weleda was founded in 1921 by Rudolf Steiner, the spiritual father of anthroposophy. The company has been committed to sustainability from the very beginning. While many of the raw materials used are planted in the company's own medicinal herb garden and sourced in cooperation with regional producers, a large proportion of the ingredients come from global partners. Weleda attaches great importance to establishing long-term cooperations. For example, it sources its organic sesame oil, an ingredient in many cosmetic products, from the Mexican family business "Sesajal". This company employs over 200 local farmers who receive an above-average income for their organically produced sesame seeds. The harvested sesame seeds are processed directly in the company's own oil mill to eliminate the middleman, which can create dependencies.

The jasmine flowers, whose essence is used as a fragrance in various natural cosmetic products, come from Tamil Nadu in southern India. The supplier is the only farm in India that grows jasmine plants organically, as Weleda emphasizes. The delicate blossoms are hand-picked by local workers, who are paid fairly for their work each week. Several times a day, the blossoms are brought to the distillery about 14 kilometers away, where the jasmine essence is extracted as a paste or liquid. For 125 grams of the liquid, 100 kilograms of blossoms are needed