Social engagement is deeply rooted within Beckers. As we strive to implement even more systematic ways to support our local communities, we are focusing our activties on one global Common Cause driving our community engagement: children and youth. Every year our sites support young people in their communities and beyond with many projects.
Based on our materiality assessment, we have categorized ➜ our material topics. In the stream People with Impact, we strive for ➜ diverse, motivated, and empowered employees and encourage each and every one – no matter their role in our company – to learn and grow. As the ➜ safety and well-being of our employees, partners and customers is crucial for us, we take the promotion of a safe and healthy work environment very seriously and support it actively. Finally, we advance social engagement with our local stakeholder to support sustainable development in their communities, because we value them and their well-being highly.
“Community Engagement is a central element of creating impact. Our people, belong to their local communities and we cannot be sustainable unless our contribution to these neighborhoods and regions is positive.”
At Beckers, we care about the people in our communities and their sustainable development. Our community engagement goes beyond philanthropy, as we strive to implement even more systematic ways to support our local communities.
We have not set a formal target for our community engagement; however, we are monitoring several KPIs and have decided on an impact KPI in 2022 to improve our measurement of the activities. We are aiming to set a 2030 goal for the total number of children and youth impacted positively by our activities.
At Beckers, we can support communities with our activities, and we are committed to doing so. By working with partners on local projects, volunteering to participate in community programs, or partnering with selected non-governmental organizations (NGO), we work hard to advance our social engagement. A number of our projects help support the communities where Beckers operates. Employees can volunteer to support local initiatives on company time. We are deeply conscious of our responsibility to our communities, and we make a concerted effort to manage our potential and actual negative impacts through all our material topics.
On a global level, we partnered with UNICEF in March 2022 to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Beckers is also a member of Global Child Forum’s Business Sounding Board – a pool of businesses that Global Child Forum draws on to discuss strategic ideas around improving children’s lives. In 2022, Beckers also started a collaboration with Save the Children. Together with the NGO, we reviewed our policies and commitments to ensure that all aspects of children’s rights are covered.
For further information on how we manage human rights click here.
In December 2021, we committed ourselves to a single global Common Cause to drive our community engagement, establishing children and youth as the focus of our activities. Our Common Cause is a continuation and logical consequence of our purpose, our values, our code of conduct and our global sustainability goals. This official commitment, signed by the Executive Committee and shared with all of our colleagues, underlines our ambitions. The document offers Beckers’ employees and stakeholders orientationon how they can promote this essential cause within their communities, and it is an important pillar of our social engagement.
We also conduct a number of projects aligned with our Common Cause to support the communities in which Beckers operates. Our employees around the globe regularly volunteer their time and money to support selected local initiatives.
For more information on community engagement, click here
In 2022, part of ➜ our annual sustainability contract with our owner Lindéngruppen was to set a KPI to measure the real impact of Beckers community engagement. We specifically focused our measurement on impact rather than just outcome. We agreed on the total number of children and youth impacted positively by our activities.
In response to the Russian attack on Ukraine, we started a central campaign in March 2022 to help children affected by the war in Ukraine. After reviewing organizations connected to our Common Cause, we chose to make a direct donation to UNICEF. Through this contribution, we supported UNICEF’s important humanitarian work, such as providing emergency shelters, field kitchens, medicine and warm clothing. We encouraged all our employees to join the aid campaign and donate to UNICEF. Beckers then matched the employees’donation.
Additionally, in a hands-on effort to help those in need, Beckers’ team in Poland organized a collection of blankets, medicine, clothing, hygiene products, instant ready meals, water and more essential supplies for people from Eastern Ukraine. All items were transported directly to Ukraine and delivered to local collection points.
Within R&D at Beckers, we sponsor a variety of academic research. We have a number of active and future planned PhD studentships with universities including Swansea, Sheffield, KTH, Imperial College and Liverpool University. The research covers knowledge- and capability-building in areas that are strategically important for Beckers Group. Some of the PhD studentships are being undertaken part time by LTD team members based in Liverpool. All collaborations have a focus on sustainability.
Dialogue with our neighbors and our active community engagement requires well-developed plans. Representatives of our communities were asked to participate in our global stakeholder survey in 2022, where we received some answers. We are in touch with our communities via our local entities.
Our strongest commitment lies in ➜ our 2030 Sustainability Strategy and goals that we have long communicated. A variety of policies and frameworks underline our commitments to communities.
For further information on human rights click here.
Our actions contribute to the achievement of the ➜ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) quality education (SDG 4), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), reduced inequalities (SDG 10) and partnerships for the goals (SDG17), because we deeply care about the people in our communities and therefore, drive sustainable growth in their communities forward and support organizations, e.g. through donations.
For further information on the SDGs click here
