Robbert Rietbroek, Vice President and Managing Director Kimberly-Clark Australia & New Zealand.
Sustainability is vitally important in today’s challenging business environment. Consumers are more informed than ever before, customers want to work with companies that are doing the right thing and the new generation of employees want to work for companies that are socially responsible.
Globally, Kimberly-Clark is leading the world in providing essentials for a better life and is committed to doing it sustainably to help create a better world for future generations. For over 140 years, the Kimberly-Clark values of authentic, accountable, innovative and caring have been woven throughout the fabric of our company. These values have created the kind of company Kimberly-Clark is today and they determine how we continue to do business around the world.
While our sustainability efforts have always been motivated by our values and doing the right thing, we also recognise that integrating sustainability into every aspect of our business provides us with several competitive advantages. It earns us a cost advantage through reductions in things like energy, water and in waste sent to landfill, and it also gives Kimberly-Clark and our brands a competitive advantage.
As an Australian manufacturer, we have continued to be challenged by currency devaluation and the cost of energy, labour and raw materials. Yet, while other companies are being forced to close their Australian manufacturing operations due to the challenging business landscape, I’m proud to say that our Australian operations are thriving as we invest in innovation to allow us to continue to make the best products for our consumers, increase efficiencies and reduce our environmental footprint and operating costs.
I’m pleased to say that, despite a difficult business environment in 2013, Kimberly-Clark Australia and New Zealand had a hugely successful year with regards to sustainability. We were recognised by three of Australia’s most prestigious sustainability awards – the Banksia Awards for Leading in Sustainability for Large Organisations, the Australian Business Awards and the FSC Awards.
I would like to acknowledge the work of our partners and the Kimberly-Clark employees who have helped bring the Our Essential World strategy to life, in particular, our manufacturing facilities for continuously improving our processes to increase production and energy efficiencies and improve our environmental footprint.
Jacquie Fegent-McGeachie, Associate Director Corporate Affairs & Sustainability
We’ve continued to make great progress with the Our Essential World sustainability strategy by embedding sustainability into our core business and, as a result, we are tracking very well against our targets under our three focus areas of People, Planet and Products. In fact, in many areas we have already met or are well on our way to meeting our 2015 goals ahead of schedule.
Our people are embracing the Our Essential World strategy to help us make a positive difference to the community. We continued to increase participation in employee workplace giving and volunteering programs in 2013. Over 15% of our employees made donations through our Giving and Disaster Relief programs, which means we’ve surpassed our 2015 target. In addition, over 28% of our employees dedicated time to volunteer in the community, which means we are so close to meeting our 2015 goal.
In May 2013, we ran our second employee sustainability survey to measure the extent to which sustainability is embedded into our workplace culture, and to gauge employees attitudes, awareness and understanding of the role sustainability plays in our business. This was the first survey we have run since launching our strategy and the results show that we are successfully embedding sustainability into our core business and that employees understand the important and beneficial role it plays.
At the end of 2013 we also completed the installation of a $30 million cogeneration facility at our Millicent Mill that has slashed our usage of electricity and reduced our carbon emissions and we are looking forward to reporting next year after a full year in operation. Since 2011, we have reduced our emissions by 23.6% from 2011 levels, meaning we are very close to meeting our 2015 target of emission reduction ahead of schedule.
Ethical fibre sourcing continues to be an important focus for our business and in 2013. We were also excited to launch our first fibre product using FSC® certified bamboo fibres in our VIVA® Paper Towel with Bamboo Fibres, which was also a first for Kimberly-Clark globally.
We also continued our support of WWF’s Love Your Forests campaign, which aims to raise awareness of FSC as the certification of choice, and the importance of sourcing tissue, paper and timber products from responsibly managed forests.
In New Zealand our partnership with Envirocomp, a voluntary product stewardship scheme to reduce sanitary hygiene waste to landfill was accredited under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008 by the Honorary Amy Adams, New Zealand’s Minister for the Environment.
In Australia, we continued to participate in the Redcycle packaging stewardship program, giving consumers an option to recycle our flexible packaging.
Looking to 2014 and beyond, we will continue to focus on product stewardship, improving our processes and practices at our manufacturing facilities and also engaging our employees to embed sustainability practices across our entire business and organisation.
