Press Room
November 19, 2003
Cognis Sustainability Report receives top international award
Once again, Cognis has received official recognition for the excellence of its corporate communications: having already received the LACP’s (League of American Communications Professionals) Platinum Award for its 2002 annual report (best annual report in the chemicals sector), the company has now been given another Platinum Award for its Sustainability Report, this time in the Community/Non-Financial category. Cognis also received a Gold Award in the Most Memorable Communication category.
As with the competition for annual reports in the summer, entries for the LACP’s 2003 Spotlight Awards came from all over the world, and with 86 points out of a possible 100, Cognis’s Sustainability Report was ranked ahead of all its rivals. Published in English and German, the Report scored 26 out of a possible 30 for first impression, and was also close to full marks for design and content, with nine out of ten on both criteria.
The report focuses on what Cognis sees as the four dimensions of sustainability: people, environment, company and products. The company has made an explicit commitment to achieving a proper balance between economic, social and environmental concerns. In practice, this means a raft of social initiatives around the world, continuous staff development, production processes that are as environmentally friendly as possible, stringent quality and safety standards throughout the company, and innovative products combining sustainability with outstanding performance. The Report makes it very clear that at Cognis, sustainability is not just an abstract philosophy, but a key driver of future success.
This fact is conveyed not with dry facts and figures, but with a wealth of engaging examples. These include community projects and a reduction of industrial effluent at Cognis Brazil; sponsorship programs including street children, career and family charities and the Special Olympics; environmentally friendly production processes; provision of medical care and safety training; and new products such as bio-hydraulic oils, ion exchangers for use in copper production, and plant-based ingredients for paints and coatings.
Susanne Marell, Cognis’s Vice President Corporate Communications, was responsible for managing the project, working with her in-house team and Düsseldorf design agency creativ partner. “We didn’t just want to present the facts, we were aiming for an emotional response,“ she says. “We wanted to get people excited about this issue. That’s why the Sustainability Report uses journalistic reporting techniques, to ensure the points our partners and our own project managers want to make really come across.” The Sustainability Report and the annual report share many design elements, making it clear that the two documents complement each other within the Cognis communication strategy in the same way that financial and environmental concerns are meshed in its business plan.
Comments Cognis CEO Antonio Trius: “This award will encourage us to continue along the course we are already embarked on. Being a global specialty chemicals player brings with it certain responsibilities, and the Sustainability Report is a clear statement of the way in which we actively discharge these responsibilities to our staff, to the communities we work in, and to the environment.”
Note:
Pictures of the annual report and the LACP award can be downloaded from the Cognis image database (www.cognis.com).
About Cognis:
Cognis is a worldwide supplier of innovative specialty chemicals and nutritional ingredients with almost 9,000 employees in close to 50 countries. The company has dedicated its activities to a high level of sustainability and delivers natural source raw materials and ingredients for food, nutrition and healthcare markets, and the cosmetics, detergents and cleaners industries. Additionally, Cognis provides solutions for a number of other industries, such as coatings and inks, lubricants, textiles and plastics, as well as agriculture and mining.
Cognis is owned by private equity funds advised by Permira, GS Capital Partners, and Schroder Ventures Life Sciences. In 2002, Cognis recorded sales of 3.1 billion. A turnover of 1.5 billion euros was achieved in the first six months of 2003.
Contact:
Susanne Marell, Vice President Cognis Corporate Communications,
Cognis Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG
Phone: +49-211-7940-5395
e-mail: susanne.marell@cognis.com
Internet: www.cognis.com