Responsibility for social sustainability

Sustainability builds on social, environmental, and economic factors. Social sustainability is indisputably the most important pillar. Only if a society and each of its individuals can develop freely and according to their wishes can economic success and environmental understanding develop.

Our social responsibility extends not only to our employees and their families, but also to the entire population at our locations. We are the largest regional employer in both Gabon and Brazil. A significant part of local businesses and local social structures are thus directly or indirectly affected by the success of our company. We see it as our social responsibility to support the communities and be a part of public life. Our engagement depends greatly on the local circumstances.

In Brazil, for instance, our employees and their families enjoy special access to the health care system. For the benefit of the public, we also regularly support cultural events there and participate in the construction of public facilities such as playgrounds.

In Gabon, we provide access to food, drinking water, electricity, and health care for our employees. Given that the social and cultural offerings in the region are limited, we have always organised sporting events and we operate a large cultural centre.

Unique cultural project in Gabon

Because there is a lack of broad social offerings at our location in Gabon, we have launched our own cultural project with a large >cultural centre. This is a unique offering for the promotion of social sustainability. The centre was planned and is run by our voluntary cultural committee. In addition to a library with computers and internet access, the centre also offers training facilities. Regular cultural events take place, and the centre serves as a venue for celebrations such as weddings.

Another main use of the centre is for adult education and to support school children.

Read more on Facebook » of the cultural projects.

Education as the key to sustainable development

Employees with strong training are an indispensable necessity for us. In addition to disadvantages for our company, a lack of training can also mean that employees cannot develop freely in social and financial terms. General scholastic education and solid professional training are thus undisputedly the foundation of any positive social, environmental, and economic development.

We recognise the efforts of the public educational institutions and also actively support them in Gabon by providing accommodation to teachers and making the school infrastructure available. During the holidays, motivated young people also have the opportunity to attend various remedial and further education courses in our cultural centre. Older adolescents benefit from free transport to the nearest secondary schools. In order to give adult employees the opportunity for further education, our cultural centre offers various programs from literacy courses to computer training.

To counter a lack of skilled workers, we also rely on regular internal and external training opportunities. For example, our sharpeners and loggers in Gabon receive training several times a year from external experts. Thanks to cooperation with the Red Cross and the public fire brigades, we are also able to offer general further training and thus provide our employees with extensive advancement opportunities.

We also maintain close partnerships with local universities. We do this not only to advance >research, but also because we are often able to recruit graduates from these universities as valuable employees and managers.

Although our engagement in education and training involves the allocation of high financial and personnel resources, it allows our employees to broadly develop their skills. In this way, we and our employees lay the foundation for long-term social and economic success.