Responsible employer and neighbour

Our responsibility

Our factories are large, local workplaces that are important to the local economy and many peoples’ daily lives. Moreover, a manufacturing company like ours also affects the local community with heavy transports, noise, odours and other nuisances during the production season. That is why we are committed to conducting a close dialogue with the relevant local players and on ensuring safe and attractive conditions for our employees.

 

Our actions

Dialogue with neighbours and authorities
We take our dialogue with the authorities in our local areas very seriously. We want a responsible, proactive and open cooperative, and we want to honour the trust shown to us by observing our reasonable framework conditions. Should, problems arise, we immediately inform the authorities. Our commitment to dialogue also involving listening to our neighbours’ wishes and need. In this exchange, we also expect that they listen to ours. This leads to mutually satisfactory solutions. When we receive specific complaints, we nip them in the bud and invite the involved parties for dialogue. When the neighbours of our factory in Kedainiai in Lithuania complained about the smell from the residual product sugar factory lime, an immediate dialogue with neighbours and authorities paved the way for a decision to install lime presses – but also for promises from the authorities to expedite the project planning permissions to avoid delay. The immediate and close dialogue meant that the problem was solved to everyone’s satisfaction.

 
A healthy and safe workplace
We give high priority to safe working conditions, and it is our vision to avoid serious accidents completely. For many years, we have been working systematically to improve health and safety standards – with great success. We continue to test new methods to improve safety still further, and we regularly launch initiatives to renew the focus on the area and to further develop our safety culture. In addition, Nordic Sugar is certified to OHSAS 18001 standard for health and safety work.

 

Responsible handling of layoffs
Like all other companies, we cannot avoid having to lay off employees every now and then as a result of cutbacks or restructuring. As a general rule, we try to achieve such down-sizing  by not filling vacancies and by offering job opportunities elsewhere in our company. When that is not possible, we give first priority to ensuring that the affected employees are able to move on successfully. We usually succeed in helping people to new jobs outside our company, because of the skills and competences they have acquired, and because we cooperate actively with outplacement agencies as well as local networks.

 
Our performance

A year after closing our factories in Salo (Finland), Köpingebro (Sweden) and Assens (Denmark) in 2006, 90 per cent of the affected employees were in employment or had enrolled in a further training programme.

 

In 2007, when we closed our factory in Panevezys in Lithuania, our exemplary cooperation with employees and trade unions triggered a decision to award Nordic Sugar as company of the year in Lithuania for our CSR management. The UN and the Lithuanian Government were behind this decision.

 

Lost-time injury frequency (LTI) has gone down significantly during the past 15 years. We have moved from an LTI of 54 to 8. This constitutes a remarkable development and places our performance at a high international level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The emission of dust from our factories has decreased with 70% since 1999.