Our Commitments for 2020/2025

Our approach to sustainability focuses primarily on increasing our ability to respond to change and establishing a forward-looking culture. We have identified the issues that are important to our stakeholders, contribute to the long-term success of our business and which help to combat global problems. Our 2020/2025 ambitious commitments are designed to ensure that we are focused on the areas where we as a company have the greatest impact. These commitments give us clear direction and charge us to strive for a better performance.

In 2018, we generated at least 49% of our sales with products with an improved environmental impact. (Base year 2011)

Environmental evaluation is being embedded throughout our product development process. Here we look critically at all the aspects of a product over its entire life-cycle, from the selection of raw materials and packaging, through production and transport processes, all the way to the product's final disposal.

Our Product Sustainability Scorecard allows us to assess the environmental impact of our products' packaging and formulas. Amongst the key factors we evaluate at Beiersdorf are the amount of certified sustainable raw materials, the impact on water toxicology, the reduction in packaging materials achieved, and the use of recycled materials used. We also include the results of our products' Life-Cycle Analyses in the overall scorecard.

For a product to be assessed as having "a reduced environmental impact" it needs to achieve a better overall scorecard result than the product(s) it replaces. We benchmark newly developed products for which there is not yet a reference score against comparable existing products.

59% lower energy related CO₂ emissions per product manufactured. (Base year 2014)
81% of electricity from renewable energy sources in 2018.

Our climate targets will enable us to consistently and systematically reduce our CO₂ emissions across all three scopes. The measures defined for the reduction of our energy-related CO₂ emissions (Scope 1 and 2) include energy efficiency measures in our production centers and the switch over of the electricity supply at all our sites worldwide to renewable energy sources by 2020.

To help us also lower emissions caused by the goods and services we procure (Scope 3) by 2025, we will develop specific reduction targets and plan detailed measures in the areas of packaging, raw materials, transport, business travel and suppliers of finished products in 2019.

We continually optimize our data-gathering in order to improve data quality as well as extrapolations and thereby provide the most precise picture possible of our sustainability performance. In order to obtain comparable data we measure our CO₂ emissions according to the requirements of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

Since 2013, we have supported a total of 961,936 families through our global social commitment.

Our commitment to improving the living conditions of one million families has both a qualitative and a quantitative dimension. When determining the social impact of our projects we take into account global criteria as well as local conditions and needs in equal measure.

Our focus is especially on socially disadvantaged families beyond our value chain, whom we reach through donation programs at a company level and social sponsoring by our brands.

By supporting individual family members e.g. through educating children or empowering mothers, our projects contribute to the improved well-being of the whole family. We ensure sustainable impact by focusing on long-term projects with trusted local partners and favoring high-quality over high-quantity projects.