Environment Product sustainability Our commitment to product sustainability is clear to see in the functional, high-quality and long-lasting design of our products. We aim to inspire our customers with "sustained" enthusiasm and this objective is firmly anchored in our philosophy of global customer benefits, according to which everyone who uses our products should benefit from them. As such, our products should create added value – something that also applies to aspects of sustainability. Our product sustainability management strategy forms an integral part of the Integrated Management System (IMS) of the Blum Group. Responsibility for product sustainability management falls to our sustainability team, but is also a cross-divisional responsibility involving many different organisational units and specialists who work closely with the other elements of our integrated management system, notably our environmental and energy management systems. Both the organisational structure and management approach are designed to help continuously improve the sustainability performance of products and services throughout their entire life cycle. Fundamentally, this means developing products that are useful, high-quality, durable, environmentally friendly and as recyclable as possible. To improve our sustainability credentials across the entire product life cycle, we analyse our practices and optimise our processes at every stage, from research and development, procurement and manufacturing through to recycling at the end of the product life. This enables us to derive and introduce targeted actions that, in turn, provide us with further insights for the development of new products. Our certified environmental (ISO 14001), energy (ISO 50001) and FSC© management systems are also useful tools in improving our product sustainability. Defining sustainable products At Blum, we define a sustainable product as one that combines exceptionally high quality standards with minimum environmental impacts at each stage of the product life cycle. Right from the start of product development, our focus is on making efficient use of raw materials and formulating clear energy and environmental standards which we implement throughout the project development phase. We maintain transparent records, in which we set out our goals, areas for improvement and progress achieved. Typical criteria that we use to assess the sustainability of our products include: – Appropr iate mater ial selection – Mater ial management dur ing the production process – Product lifespan – Product safet y – Consumption of resources dur ing the use phase – Recycling possibilities at the end of the use phase We monitor product sustainability performance and publish our findings using recognised methods such as product-related environmental impact analyses. We will be introducing these in the form of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs) for various product groups over the next few years. ➔ GRI 302-5 Our action plans and programmes also incorporate many measures to improve the sustainability of our products. These include: – Environmental impact analyses (see above) dur ing the product development and design stages – Increased use of recyclable raw mater ials and packaging mater ials – Standardised information about the environmental impacts of our products We consistently monitor and review our measures to improve the sustainability of our products, notably as part of our regular management system audits. Through training and in-house initiatives, we also promote a general understanding of the importance of sustainability issues among our staff and provide targeted training for those employees in roles that have a direct influence over the sustainability of our products. 45
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