CLR’s “Acting Together” Program – an Ongoing Journey

Interview with Nathalia Gruber, Director Marketing & Corporate Communications,
CLR

You just launched your CSR program "Acting together" in September. How is CSR anchored at CLR?

Sustainability and social responsibility are not new topics for us at CLR. Many years ago, we have already introduced an integrated management system combining quality, environmental and social responsibility aspects in accordance with ISO 9001, ISO 14001, SA8000 and EFfCI GMP standards. As part of our management system, we have set ourselves many sustainability goals in recent years and have already successfully implemented most of them. We just hardly communicated this externally so far. With the “Acting together” program, we now bundle our activities, look proudly at what we have achieved, make new commitments and continue on our path to a more sustainable company.

How does this affect the development of your products?

Natural raw materials and active processes are the starting point for our product development initiatives and are an essential part of our products. Technologically, we largely focus on innovative biotechnological processes. We continuously look for new ways to make our products as environmentally friendly as possible and have already been able to reduce our energy consumption in many processes. Many of our products have obtained natural certifications, such as Cosmos, Ecocert and NaTrue. To name just two examples - for our active ingredient AnnonaSense CLR™ we use fruits that are not suitable for sale and would otherwise be discarded, and for our latest active ingredient CutiGuard CLR™ we protect natural resources and use algae that are grown locally and sustainably in Germany.

And your employees? How do you ensure that CSR at CLR is also lived by them? 

As part of our management system, every department is called upon to set sustainability goals. This means that sustainability and reflecting on sustainability goals is automatically present among employees. There are many environmental measures that we have implemented together at our site. In addition, we have various projects to encourage living sustainably. At a Berlin school, for example, we have our own bees, which we regularly report on. Just now we also got our first CLR honey. Every year we take part in city cycling with our CLR Green Team, and we support local social projects.

What's next for CSR at CLR?

Sustainability and social responsibility play an increasingly important role in our society. The current situation exacerbates the situation even further and increases the pressure to save energy and develop new technologies. For us, the path to a more sustainable company is an ongoing process. We are constantly looking for ways to improve. Recently, we also established a science-based, emissions reduction target to drive our energy efficiency initiative, including the installation of photovoltaic plants to self-generate a part of our electrical energy demand. The first part of this plant is already installed and scheduled to go into operation soon. We are proud of what we have already achieved but it is an ongoing journey and we will continue on our path to a more sustainable company.