Sustainability
Sisecam sets out sustainability goals Ali Efe Caglayan* outlines the company’s sustainability plans for the rest of the decade under its CareforNext stategy, and how it contributes to the United Nations Development Programme’s Sustainable Development Goals.
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isecam is committed to accelerating its efforts to manage resources with integrated waste management, sustainability in the supply chain and a circular economy understanding. To this end, Sisecam aims to adopt a lifecycle-oriented approach in its value chain and evaluate the effects on all stages of product life, in line with its CareforNext Sustainability Strategy. CareforNext is built on a sustainability framework comprising three pillars, namely ‘Protect the Planet’, ‘Empower Societies’ and ‘Transform Lives, and the supporting area called ‘Continuous Development’, which crosscuts all sustainability activities for 2022-2030. In the new strategy period, Sisecam aims to bolster its CareforNext vision as a company Protecting the Planet, Empowering Societies, Transforming Lives and Continuously Developing itself and stakeholders in all these areas. Sisecam Sustainability Goals cover fiveyear periods and are established in a way that contributes to the United Nations Development Programme’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Material topics under the Protect the Planet pillar are Climate Change, Water Use, and Circular Production. Material topics under the Empower Societies pillar are Corporate Heritage, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Talent Acquisition, Development and Management, and Occupational Health and Safety. Material topics under the Transform Lives pillar are Sustainability across the Value Chain, Digitalised Value Chain, Sustainable Products, and Value-Added Cooperations and Partnerships. Under the circular economy model, the
main objective is to manage all product components and related processes in a resource-efficient manner and to minimise their environmental impact throughout the life cycle of the product. Material selection and production processes as well as the use, turning into waste and recovery practices for the product are holistically observed in the planning phase in order to address the product or service design within the framework of the end-to-end life cycle and are thus managed. As part of its glass and chemicals activities, Sisecam started an initiative in October 2021 to register its sustainable products, capitalise on life-cycle-based opportunities, and manage sustainability expectations for the entire value chain within the Transform Lives pillar . Under this effort, Sisecam will perform life cycle analysis (LCA: Life Cycle Analysis), environmental labeling/ eco-label (EPD: Environmental Product Declaration), and other relevant certification (GRS: Global Recycle Standard) activities for selected products in its core business areas while ensuring further development of its corporate capacities. The initiative will include the sustainable products from flat glass and auto glass, container glass, glassware and chemicals production. Many departments – such as Supply Chain, Procurement, R&D, and Quality – will provide technical support to the initiative, which encompasses production facilities and central functions. The first phase outputs will be delivered in January 2022. The initiative is planned to be completed in May 2022. This effort will generate outputs for efficient process
management and stakeholder guidance while contributing to the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, the initiative will provide Sisecam with the opportunity to reduce costs and environmental impacts, increase brand value, and transparently share environmental performance between customers (B2B) and final consumers (B2C) by detecting hot spots in materials, energy, and resources throughout Sisecam’s entire supply chain. LCA is a scientific tool for the evaluation of environmental effects of products or services throughout the complete life cycle, literally from cradle to grave. This involves the extraction of raw materials, refining, fabrication, transportation, use, recycling and disposal of the product, as well as the energy and ancillary materials supplies. An LCA provides an opportunity a chance to see how the products produced are affect the environment. An LCA maps out a few different strategies that provide a quality product that will not damage the environment. Thanks to the LCA studies, which are the basis for EPD certification, a detailed scrutiny of the environmental impact resulting from the manufacturing processes and supply chain for construction products can be made, which allows new policies to be proposed. It also creates a basis for eco design approaches related to energy and resource efficiency. �
* Environmental Sustainability Manager, Sustainability Directorate, Sisecam, Istanbul, Turkey www.sisecam.com
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