VEKA Plc is proud to have won the Best Sustainability Initiative at this year’s G21 Awards. The Best Sustainability Initiative looks to honour companies who have adopted measures to minimise, reuse and recycle waste, protect the environment, and minimise energy use. The judges were also interested in measures that have resulted in the mitigation of climate change.
VEKA demonstrated its ongoing commitment to sustainability after publishing its second comprehensive CSR, (corporate social responsibility), report earlier this year. Not only is CSR a key strategic objective for the business, but it also inspired VEKA’s new positioning statement for 2021, ‘We Care | We Act’ and new mission statement, ‘We care about our partners, our people & our environment.”
Like many businesses in the last 18 months, VEKA had to remain firmly focused on employee safety, business agility, and the continued supply of product, to protect the interests of its employees, suppliers, and customers. For many that would mean that sustainability would take a back seat, and although they were honest in admitting they haven’t been able to achieve all the goals that they identified in their 2019 report, they have still made progress and reported some impressive energy savings and ways to reduce waste.
Neil Evans, Managing Director at VEKA plc, said:
“Sustainability is one of the three cornerstones of the VEKA CSR strategy and includes a commitment to our partners to produce an extensive portfolio of sustainable products, enabled with the introduction of co-extrusion tools throughout our facility. We have been implementing the new tooling and related measures for three years, and we are now able to include recycled material in most our products.
“We must also acknowledge the huge contribution VEKA Recycling has made. Also part of the VEKA Group, their state-of-the-art facility is the biggest initiative of its kind in the UK and in 2020 it played its part in VEKA Group producing over 72,000 tonnes of recycled PVCu across Europe. While so many in our industry have been challenged sourcing raw materials to support volumes, we had VEKA Recycling to support us. This has put us in an incredibly strong position. At times this year they have delivered five times the level of product that they were contracted to. With virgin material so hard to source, our lines may well have struggled without this strong partnership.”
The winners were announced at the famous G Awards dinner which took place at Park Lane’s London Hilton. VEKA plc was also a finalist in the ‘COVID 19 Business Hero’ Award category, which played tribute to the businesses that have reacted to the global pandemic and pivoted the way they operate to be a force for good within the glass and glazing industry.
