tesa publishes Sustainability Report 2020 and appoints Chief Sustainability Officer
March 24, 2021With this year’s Sustainability
Report, tesa SE presents its agenda for greater sustainability. The
company considers sustainable action, production and management an essential
aspect of its strategic perspective and has once again increased its efforts
accordingly. Last year, the technology company, which is active in 100
countries, hailed ‘sustainable growth’ as a key component of its corporate
strategy. The core element is the new ‘Sustainability Agenda’. It serves as a
blueprint to align the tesa business responsibly as well as
holistically along the entire value chain. Subdivided into the areas
Environment, Customers, and Society, the agenda contains specific goals and
measures that are clearly explained in the 48-page Sustainability Report 2020.
Climate neutrality by 2050
“We’ve come a good step closer to our goal of operating climate-neutrally
by 2050: Between 2018 and 2020, we managed to reduce our energy-related CO2 emissions by 23%,”
explains Dr. Norman Goldberg. Since the end of 2020, all tesa offices
and production locations worldwide receive 100% of their electricity from
renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy or hydropower.
Moreover, in 2020 we joined the initiative ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°
C’,” says the tesa CEO. With it, the multinational company
commits to align its business activities with limiting the global temperature
increase to 1.5° C and implementing suitable measures for this purpose. Only
approx. 400 leading corporations worldwide have committed to this
agreement.
An example of an innovative adhesive solution that
helps tesa customers in the electronics industry to be more
environmentally conscious are the tesa® Bond
& Detach products. Thanks to these tapes, different smartphone components,
such as the battery, can be firmly bonded – and then removed without residue
for repair purposes or at the end of the device’s service life. This simplifies
recycling and saves resources. Over the past few years, more than 1.5 billion
smartphones worldwide have already been equipped with tesa® Bond & Detach.
Dr. Stefan Röber is the new Chief Sustainability Officer
“Our current portfolio is quite impressive. At the moment, we have almost
50 active projects which explicitly support sustainable action in product and
technology development: two thirds at product level and one third at technology
level. The spectrum ranges from tapes with adhesives made from bio-based
monomers for smartphones to adhesive packaging tapes that can simply be
disposed in the compost after use,” says Dr. Stefan Röber, Head
of tesa Product and Technology Development for 14 years. As of April
1, 2021, the Doctor of Physics will also take on the newly created position of
Chief Sustainability Officer.
“The different facets of sustainability will become increasingly relevant
and turn into an even more significant competitive factor,” says Dr.
Norman Goldberg. “We are therefore very pleased that Dr. Stefan Röber and
his 500-strong international team of experienced product developers and
engineers will drive the topic forward. Especially since there are great
synergies between sustainability and product and technology development.”
5 million Euro for Covid-19 projects
A separate chapter in the tesa Sustainability Report is dedicated to
the Corona pandemic. As early as spring 2020, the company decided to make 5
million Euro available to alleviate the need where it is greatest. The
donations from the tesa Group are connected to the aid program of the
Beiersdorf Group: ‘Care Beyond Skin’. The executive and supervisory boards
at tesa have decided to support the global Covid-19 crisis funds run
by ‘Doctors Without Borders’ and ‘Save the Children’. Moreover, tesa donates
in seven regions to local organizations selected directly by the affiliates –
from Asia to North and Latin America as well as Europe.