Making a difference at NIVEA BrazilWorld Environment Day

Hi, my name is Michelle Guersoni and I work at Beiersdorf’s affiliate in Brazil. For many years now, we have been using World Environment Day to put sustainability at the top of our agenda for a week. I am happy to give you some insight into our activities.

I have been working in our sustainability department since I joined Beiersdorf in 2011. More specifically, I am responsible for the implementation and communication of our sustainability strategy “We care.” and in this role, I am also the organizer of sustainability week. But my job involves much more. I take care of environmental aspects and work safety requirements which means taking into account both the Brazilian legal requirements and the internal procedures of Beiersdorf. This is how we ensure legal compliance at corporate level in our production center (PC) and in our office. Beyond this we are very committed to giving back to the communities around us and we support charity organizations, families and children with our corporate social responsibility programs. To me it is extremely fulfilling to have a job in which I can help people and take care of the environment. I really love it.

What does sustainability mean to us at Beiersdorf? At Beiersdorf “We care.” We are committed to achieving certain global targets with our Sustainability Strategy, e.g. to reach and improve the lives of one million families by 2020 and to reduce our energy related CO₂ emissions by 70% by 2025. We have developed several activities here in Brazil to help achieve these goals. Our office in Sao Paolo, for example, has implemented different measures to control the use of its resources including water and energy. Thanks to this, we were awarded the prestigious Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification Gold standard. And, within the NIVEA Cares for Family initiative, we support two projects: “Caring families” and the “Association for Assistance of Disabled Children” (AACD) Pedagogical Project. We have reached over 42,000 families with these social projects between 2013 and 2016.

This year, during “Sustainability Week”, we want to highlight our current “We care.” projects for our colleagues and encourage them to participate further. So we have prepared a quiz with questions about our sustainability strategy and our achievements so far. There are environmentally friendly prizes to be won, of course. Besides this, we have organized a big AACD Solidarity Bazaar where our employees can buy clothes, home accessories, shoes and more, and all proceeds will go to the AACD projects. The bazaar takes place both at the office and our PC. Furthermore, we will remind our colleagues of our green car policy, update our NIVEA Brazil website and also communicate our sustainability commitment to our consumers via Facebook. We are very proud of what we have accomplished so far and we are committed to achieving even more! This is what I love about my job: it’s great to help others and make a difference to their lives.