Environmental Protection and Workplace Safety
The Freudenberg Group and its family owners feel a great sense of responsibility towards protecting the environment and safeguarding the health and safety of employees. This sense of responsibility is a part of company culture at Freudenberg, and is firmly established in the Group Guiding Principles. Moreover, this topic is right at the top of the list of priorities for the Management Board.
It was with these principles in mind that Freudenberg established its “We all take care" initiative. Each individual employee is encouraged to put forward their own ideas and suggestions for improvement. This encourages a culture where everybody feels that they are personally responsible for protecting the environment and ensuring the safety of their own immediate workplace. Individual teams are motivated to engage with environmental protection and occupational safety and health issues through a programme of annual awards for outstanding projects. Positive examples lead to imitation, helping the whole company to continuously improve. For many years now, Freudenberg has enjoyed a low accident rate compared to the average for the sector. Indeed, it is no accident that the rate across the Group has continued to fall in recent years.
The story is similar for environmental protection. Much of what the company does goes way beyond the requirements stipulated in law. The majority of the FCS Group’s production facilities are now certified to ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management) and OHSAS 18001 (occupational health and safety).