We consider ourselves a modern waste management and recycling company that creates added value – for customers, our employees, and for the environment and society. It it is now more important than ever that we use the increasingly scarce resources more sustainably. Since we see ourselves as part of society, we rise to this challenge every day by assuming responsibility as experts for an important concern of today’s society: avoiding waste and valuing recyclables.
Our definition of sustainability is characterized by three main features:
Innovation
We are committed to protecting the environment. Therefore we constantly invest in modern technologies, work on innovations and strive to think outside the box.
Efficiency
We are dedicated to streamlining processes, advancing the preservation of resources, and sustainably optimizing structures. We continuously optimize our processes because we know that we need to combine economy with ecology.
Willingness to change
We are open to ideas and willing to make courageous decisions that have the potential to achieve an improved environment and better society. We are ready for the change. Finding solutions for today’s challenges will help us create the foundation for life for future generations and assume social responsibility.
Sustainably active together
We take action together with employees, society, politicians and associations in order to achieve our goal of avoiding waste and valuing recyclables. Initiatives and projects strengthen awareness for environmental protection, which we address together with our stakeholders. We work together to leave future generations with an intact, diverse and healthy environment.
For more environmental protection – international partnership with the WWF
We have been working with the WWF since 2015 (as Tönsmeier at that time) and have supported projects to protect the ocean with almost 1 million Euros. Now the partnership has been expanded internationally and extended by an additional five years until 2025.
As part of our sponsorship, we are funding the WWF projects “Ghost Nets” in the Baltic Sea and a model project to prevent plastic waste on the island of Phu Quoc (Vietnam) as well as the initiation of an additional model project to fight the causes of plastic waste on the island of Koh Libong in Thailand.
In addition to providing the WWF with financial means, we also contribute our expertise on reducing the use of plastics, the circular economy, recycling and waste management to the partnership. We hereby provide the WWF with strategic and technical support in order to fulfill our responsibilities at a local, regional, national and international level. We also support the WWF at a political level in important campaigns and policy requirements, for instance for a global and legally binding agreement stopping the flood of plastics into the oceans.
Promoting sustainable fan culture – partnership with TSG Hoffenheim
PreZero provides extensive support to the German Bundesliga soccer team TSG Hoffenheim in the area of resource-saving waste management. As a prominently visible sign of this partnership, the TSG soccer stadium was renamed the PreZero Arena. But the collaboration goes far beyond stadium sponsorship: Together, we want to turn the PreZero Arena into a symbol for sustainability and raise awareness for resource-saving stadium operation and visits as well as a sustainable fan culture. For this purpose, PreZero supports and advises the soccer club in all environmentally relevant topics – such as analyzing and optimizing material flows, waste separation and prevention concepts, developing and introducing a reusable cup system, or the manufacture of autograph cards made of grass paper and additional PreZero advertising items made of grass clippings, such as mobile phone cases.
REset Plastic – the plastic strategy of the Schwarz Group
With its retail business units Lidl and Kaufland, the Schwarz Group is one of the largest international retailers and is not only aware of its responsibility for the environment but actively stepping up to the challenge. It started an extensive strategy called REset Plastic which includes all business units and locations worldwide. PreZero, the Group’s waste disposal and recycling service provider, plays a central part in this strategy.
As the Schwarz Group, we cover the entire recycling loop from production and retail to waste removal and recycling. This enables us to implement effective initiatives like no other European retail company.
REset Plastic is structured into five action areas: REduce, REdesign, REcylce, REmove, and REsearch, with the intention of making the vision of “Less plastic – closed loops” a reality.
Responsible corporate governance is a matter of course for us
For this reason, we have joined the UN Global Compact as part of the Schwarz Group and are thereby committed to the principles of responsible, sustainable corporate governance.
The UN Global Compact is one of the world’s largest and most important initiatives for responsible corporate governance. Together with thousands of allies in companies and organizations from more than 160 countries, we advocate the rights of the people in our global supply chains and our employees and the protection of the environment and natural resources.
Our focus is on people, whether customers, employees, or business partners. We are therefore committed to ensuring that human rights are respected in all areas of our business activities around the world. The policy statement for the entire Schwarz Group underscores our responsibility as a globally active corporate group. Ensuring human rights is a matter of course for us.
Playing an active role in climate protection
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time. We are aware of this social responsibility and use science-based targets to set ourselves scientifically sound climate goals. The Schwarz Group has signed the Commitment Letter in the Science Based Targets Initiative on behalf of all of its corporate units.
We commit ourselves to defining the goals and measures with which we can prevent, reduce, or compensate for CO2 emissions in our value chains. We want to make a measurable contribution to meeting the goal proclaimed in the Paris Climate Agreement of keeping global warming to significantly less than 2°C.
Talking plainly. Acting sustainably.
For the first time, the sustainability report (fiscal year 2018/2019) provides an overview of the strategic basis and management approach to sustainability in the Schwarz Group. With this report, we are providing information on how we organize and implement our financial, ecological, and social responsibility within our day-to-day activities.