Weleda wins Swiss Ethics Award
Since its foundation in 1921, the assumption of social, ecological and economic responsibility has been central to Weleda. How seriously it takes this responsibility is expressed in its membership of the UEBT (Union of Ethical Biotrade). Weleda is the first and so far only Swiss company to commit itself to implementing the social and ecological criteria of the UEBT standard. This applies not only to the procurement of one raw material, but to all of them, more than a thousand in number. For this commitment, Weleda was presented with the Swiss Ethics Award on 20 April.
The Swiss Ethics Award honours projects that set new ethical standards in the field of business. The award is presented every two years by the Swiss Excellence Forum. On 20 April 2016, the award ceremony took place as part of the Swiss Entrepreneur Conference at the KKL Lucerne. The ethical responsibility of business was the focus of the speeches by Nadja Lang, Managing Director of the Max Havelaar Foundation (Switzerland), Roger de Weck, Director General of SRG and Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz Josef Radermacher, Institute for Databases and Artificial Intelligence, University of Ulm.
Contribution to the conservation of biodiversity
After Migros (2014), Weleda won the Ethics Award with its project "Ethical procurement of natural raw materials". Weleda has been a member of UEBT since 2010. Membership requires the development and implementation of a "Biodiversity Management System", which is intended to serve the company and its supply chains as a tool for continuous monitoring and gradual improvement processes. The complexity of implementing this system is demonstrated by the seven principles on which the UEBT standard is based. Among other things, they call for the conservation of biodiversity (measures to protect biodiversity), the sustainable use of biodiversity, socio-economic sustainability among suppliers (ensuring sustainability and economic viability), access- and benefit-sharing (equitable distribution of the profit generated by the use of country-specific raw materials or traditional knowledge) or respect for the rights of the actors involved in BioTrade activities (e.g. safety training and education, exclusion of discrimination, etc.).
Social commitment honored
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 is recognised by the jury as an outstanding achievement.
Despite GmbH and Die Sozialfirma AG were also nominated for the award. Despite has developed an innovative assessment for persons of trust. With its business model, Die Sozialfirma combines social commitment and economic action and thus integrates handicapped employees into the primary labour market.
