Corporate Sustainability declaration Roto Smeets Group

Policy

Roto Smeets Group views Corporate envolvement and responsibility towards employees, customer and community, including a concern for safety, health, welfare and environment, as an integral component of sound business policy.

In all business decisions, we strive for a careful balance between people, planet and profit. All voluntary measures must show a healthy balance between the effort made and the result achieved. Priority in this regard shall be given to those measures that also impact other areas, such as safety, health, welfare, environment, quality, and efficiency.

All our business activities are based on integrity. Everybody who has dealings with Roto Smeets Group, internally and externally, can rely on being treated respectfully, fairly and justly.

We are proud of our proficiency and the skill with which our employees exercise this proficiency in their everyday work. Our employees must be aware that Roto Smeets Group can achieve its objectives only by offering customers and suppliers the best standard of service. This service-minded approach is the cornerstone of Roto Smeets Group’s vision of doing business.

Our most important goal is to run a profitable, growing and sustainable business. It is essential to maintain a balance in our short-term and long-term objectives and to avoid causing damage to people and the environment.

Roto Smeets Group actively seeks to eliminate or restrict as far as possible any adverse side-effects of its products, packaging or services, whether related to the environment, health, or welfare.

All our working companies must comply with current legislation in respect of working conditions and the environment. We report on our activities in a Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

Environment

We aspire to the smallest possible ecological footprint, in part by reducing to a minimum our environmental burden, energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Where possible we engage in clean production.

We support sustainable and environmentally friendly business operations. We try to guarantee that our production processes have a minimum adverse impact on humans and the environment, insofar as that is consistent with our legitimate business needs.

The group’s environmental policy is concerned to prevent pollution of the air, water and soil and to limit nuisance from noise and other causes. The environmental effects of the use of raw materials and energy form a central theme within this policy.

The actual, effective implementation of this policy involves the use of an internal Environmental Care system that satisfies the requirements set down in the ISO 14001:2004 standard, including the related certification, to guarantee a satisfactory, responsible place for the environmental care system within the entire company’s operation.

This internal Environmental Care system has been set up to achieve the following objectives:

– Compliance with the provisions set down in environmental legislation and
   anticipation of new legislation, both national and European.

– Building up an adequate set of instruments at plant level to allow the total

   environmental burden to be controlled and limited.

– Suffusing the entire organisation with the need to limit as far as possible the

    adverse effects of business operations on the environment, especially in

   regard to emissions and waste streams. A major part of this endeavour is

   optimising the effective utilisation of raw materials and energy.

– Adequately informing those involved, both inside and outside the company,

    about the degree of environmental burden and the improvements achieved.

Roto Smeets Group actively seeks less environmentally burdensome business processes. And is committed to a continuous effort to improve its environmental performance.

Roto Smeets Group actively supports and encourages those developments in the paper industry that lead to the use of environmentally friendly raw materials and the re-use of waste paper and monitors the environmental history of the paper it purchases.

Insofar as it lies within it ability, Roto Smeets Group shall take pains to identify, limit and remediate such environmental damage (soil pollution) as may have been caused on its premises in the past.

Roto Smeets Group has operationalised an Ecobalance for the printing plants. This instrument uses a mass balance, which shows all incoming and outgoing material flows, plus energy and water, and gives an insight into the environmental effects of all processes within the plants. This annual balance provides a sound management basis to establish and reveal the potential for improvement and to determine and implement improvement activities. It is therefore an excellent aid, revealing our continuous efforts to improve our environmental performance.  

Social

We promote our employees’ vitality, employability and development using job assessments and individual training plans.

Internally, Roto Smeets Group shall ensure that the necessary information is provided to all employees. The group shall also participate in, support and encourage the necessary training courses. When selecting our employees we aim for diversity in gender, culture and age.

We create opportunities for groups that experience difficulties in the job market.

We respect human rights and comply with all legislation in this field. We reject any form of intimidation or discrimination on the grounds of race, age, gender, skin colour, sexual preference, religious beliefs, disability or country of origin. Besides our own employees, we expect other parties involved with Roto Smeets Group - including temporary workers, customers, suppliers and visitors - to refrain from any form of discrimination and to respect the human rights of other people.

We are committed to offering all employees equal opportunities. All work-related decisions - including recruitment, promotions, transfers, dismissals, disciplinary measures, compensations and payments - are taken solely on the basis of the qualifications and skills needed for the position concerned.

Every relationship with and between employees must be built on respect for the individual. We strive to recruit, develop and retain proficient people and offer all employees a safe and healthy working environment. Our employees have a duty to take all reasonable measures to prevent injury and damage to themselves, their colleagues and the public at large.

Chain responsibility

When purchasing products and services we pay close attention to the social and environmental aspects of their production, transport and use. We make agreements with our suppliers in these respects.

Important aspects in the selection of paper suppliers are sustainable timber logging and a record of the origin of all fibre material. For that reason our printing plats are all FSC and PEFC certified.

We constantly seek new opportunities in the area of sustainable products and services.

We set rules to prevent conflicts of interest in the performance of our business contacts with competitors, customers, suppliers or other third parties. Our employees may not derive any personal gain from business opportunities related to our conduct of business and must avoid situations where their own interests may conflict with those of Roto Smeets Group. We do business solely on the basis of the value and service we offer and we avoid unethical conduct.

All applicable international and national competition laws must be respected. They must refrain from holding impermissible discussions with competitors, exchanging sensitive information and engaging in other forms of illegal practices concerning competition.

Community

We are open to partnerships and collaborations and where we can we share our knowledge and experience. We contribute to the quality of life in those places or regions to which we are attached.

The Roto Smeets Group sponsorship policy is concerned to encourage voluntary work by offering financial support to the charitable foundation involved.

All the elements of this statement are essential to the way Roto Smeets Group conducts its business and are at the root of our decision making. Our employees support the objectives set out above and are completely aware of their own responsibilities in this regard.

Deventer, april 2010

Management Board, Roto Smeets Group NV

Roto Smeets Group is partner of MVO Nederland