We are aware that we impact the environment in a direct and indirect way, therefore we operate such as to reduce that influence to minimum. We voluntarily engage in environmental activities and initiatives. Social responsibility in the area of environmental protection is our response to the challenges associated with sustainable development. We manage the area by way of the implemented environmental policies and ISO standard guidelines.
We invest in environmental education
Apart from the attention paid to production processes and environmental impact, the Grupa Kęty S.A. Capital Group has been carrying out consistent educational campaigns to promote ecological behaviour. As a signatory of the UN Global Compact, we have been trying to approach the environmental protection goals, and particularly Goal 8 –‘Undertaking initiatives to promote environmental responsibility’, in a reliable manner.
In 2018 the Company continued its previous initiatives, including ‘Let’s Clean the Beskids’, ‘A Top to Get a Wheelchair’, and the ‘Bike HELPS’.
‘Let’s Clean the Beskids’ -
the action engaged the total of 768 people, including 550 children and youths. From the mountain tracks leading to Magurka, Babia Góra and Klimczok over 8,670 litres of waste was collected.
‘Bike HELPS’ –
over 50 million km; limitation of CO2 emission by 12,741 t; 30 bikes awarded.
‘A Top to Get a Wheelchair’ –
640 kg only in 2018, and over 4 tonnes since the beginning of the initiative.
A new initiative in which the Company engaged in 2018 was the sustainable development project under the name ‘Letters to the Earth’. That extensive educational campaign carried out among children and youths consists in their writing letters to the adults, in which the young people present their ideas on how to protect the environment of the Planet Earth. The project is nationwide – in 2018 over 150,000 people from 300 towns and villages participated.
In this initiative, the Company engaged the children of the employees and the children supported by the ‘Grupa Kęty for the Children of Podbeskidzie Region’ Foundation in creating our First Book of Letters to the Earth.
The project accommodated a series of ecological workshops and symbolic trees planting.
Another new initiative in 2018 was the ‘Sowing the Sun’ project. Within the project we have sown and planted sunflowers around Poland. At the inauguration event, the children from the Bielsko-Biała schools planted the sunflower seedlings they had raised in recycled plant pots. The leitmotif of the project is a sunflower – the sunniest flower of all.The initiative promotes simple ecological activities, focused in particular on assistance to bees and birds. The establishment of ecological fruit and vegetable gardens has also been promoted. The project of nationwide scope was actively attended by the employees of the Grupa Kęty S.A. Capital Group and the children supported by the ‘Grupa Kęty for the Children of the Podbeskidzie Region’ Foundation. The chief organiser was the ARKA Ecological Foundation.