CSR certification at Kajima Poland
Reduced negative impact on the environment, care for biodiversity, and social aspects of all business activities are factors that customers more often take into account in their investment plans. Therefore, Kajima Poland cares about maintaining high competence in these aspects, being always organizationally and substantively ready to construct facilities incorporating any eco-friendly solutions and intended for green certification, such as BREEAM and LEED.
Kajima Poland has resolved that in order to maintain high qualifications in the area of environment- and community-friendly projects, the company has to constantly participate in the CSR certification process. There are several organizations and certification systems used in this area. We have chosen the EcoVadis platform that carries out assessments in four key categories: Sustainable Procurement, Environment, Labor & Human Rights and Ethics. We were inspired to take part in this project by an international client. With our CSR certificate, the client was confident that we care about our social and natural environment.
Each evaluation process is costly and time-consuming but it brings evident benefits. The ability to make a self-assessment already at the stage of completing the documentation is definitely one of them. Going through the evaluation process helped us look at our own resources and procedures critically and constructively: we engaged in interdepartmental discussions, often quite heated ones, modified our OHS and environmental procedures, developed new logistic solutions, etc. Our improvement started first in those areas where costs forced previously proper solutions, that were legal and consistent with the generally accepted practice but not optimal in terms of environmental protection. We have modified, for example, the principles of operation of our offices on construction sites, the method of waste segregation, waste minimization in all offices of the organization, etc. Moreover, two years ago, Kajima Poland launched a long-term training program for its employees to increase their professional and social skills. The detailed external assessment by EcoVadis proved obviously very useful.
Any long-term actions in the area of environmental protection and broadly understood CSR are increasingly often an open sesame to tenders for the implementation of large-scale, complex projects for well-known brands. And this is the very kind of projects we want to implement. EcoVadis awarded us a bronze medal for 2018. As it was our first attempt and we were still analyzing the organizer’s requirements, this result was quite a success for us. This year, our result was even better, as EcoVadis awarded us a silver medal. What can we expect next year? We don’t want to speak too soon…
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Kajima Poland
Last Updated on March 3, 2021 by Karolina Ampulska