We care. around the world – Durban

As part of its "We care." Sustainability strategy Beiersdorf can already look back on a number of initiatives all over the world. But what can we do in a small way to contribute to reducing our ecological footprints? This is exactly what a group of committed employees in our office in Durban, South Africa asked themselves to develop an initiative to make their own office more environmentally friendly.

Durban’s “Green Team” consisting of nine employees created the initiative "Durban Thinks Planet" taking Beiersdorf’s global goal of “Zero Waste to Landfill” as a model. With this goal, recyclable materials in production waste will no longer be brought to landfills, but rather, avoided, reduced, reused or recycled as much as possible.

Among the measures of “Durban Thinks Planet” is a new recycling program, which includes the installation of paper recycling bins for waste separation. Furthermore, a new printing system was introduced by which each user receives his/her own code for printing documents. This alone led to a paper reduction of over 30%! In Durban, the amount of paper that is spared through those green measures mounts up to 277 trees annually. The printing system has already been introduced in other office locations including, among others, the Beiersdorf headquarters in Hamburg.