Our goal – a transformative corporate strategy

We regard the promotion of sustainable development and transformation, also beyond our core business, as part of our corporate mission. Our vision: none of our products should harm the habitat of people and nature. Our entire value chain is geared toward the strict alignment of our brands and companies with the goals of a regenerative economy. Or to put it another way: we either do it sustainably – or we don’t do it at all. An approach which presents numerous challenges, but also opens up a wealth of opportunities.

We believe that this is the only way we can create a healthy, vibrant, and just world for us all – a world in which an ecologically meaningful way of living and working becomes a self-evident and collective reality. We are therefore working on the further development of our corporate strategy, in which sustainability requirements are systematically integrated.

This is done both at the level of the individual operating divisions and for our strategies at Group level. To ensure the success of these efforts, we take a holistic approach and always link sustainability with innovation and a culture of cooperation. In this way, we create the conditions for the most future-oriented and efficient promotion of sustainable development inside and outside the company.

Via – our three strategic dimensions

For the future alignment of our business activities, we are therefore focusing more strongly on three strategic dimensions: Regenerative Value Creation, Work Culture, and Social Business. They will increasingly determine our way of doing business and manifest themselves more and more strongly in all our areas of action.

1. Regenerative Value Creation

   
   According to the latest studies, we as a global society have already exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries. This means that “less bad” is no longer good enough. Instead, we need to make our global value creation “more good” and in so doing give ecosystems the opportunity to regenerate. We at Melitta intend to and will contribute to this by developing 100% circular production processes and product cycles. We are committed to renewable energy sources, regenerative agriculture and resource utilization, as well as the circular economy. Our goal is a meaningful economy in which the value created by a company is not only measured by growth and profit maximization, but also determined by social and ecological goals. Moreover, we attach great importance to green tech: innovative technologies that prevent or reduce environmental harm from the outset or remedy damage that has already been done.
   
   
   

2. Work Culture

   
   We associate the term “work culture” with a fundamental attitude that underpins everything we do: it is based on appreciation and respect for people and the environment – throughout the Group and in our value chains and their environment. This is because long-term success and continuous development are only possible in tandem with appreciation and respect for our employees and our business partners. For us, Work Culture therefore comprises our HR strategy, our commitment to respecting human rights, product safety and transparency, as well as our long-lasting supplier and customer relationships.
   We are in the process of further intensifying cooperation – both within our Group and with external parties. After all, a comprehensive transformation requires diversity and co-creation. The recognition of common, pre-competitive tasks and continuous dialogue are essential prerequisites for the establishment of trusting relationships. Our task is therefore to create a fertile breeding ground for innovative learning, to encourage a wide range of experiences, and to share insights. We want to educate and empower, while generating a networked culture of inspiration that will enable us to unleash our individual and collective potential.
   
   
   

3. Social Business

   
   In its purest form, the concept of social business involves the principle of reinvesting profits in the company, its supply chains, and/or their environment. We aim to make a contribution to good environmental and living conditions through our actions – even beyond our own business operations. This approach will become an increasingly integral part of our business model in future. Together with our partners, we want to help solve the world’s social and environmental problems and to improve the living conditions of all stakeholders in a way that ensures long-term prosperity, human dignity, and social justice. We aim to link ecological and economic processes – also in developing and emerging nations – and to drive those technical innovation processes and infrastructures that deliver both positive environmental outcomes and economic benefits. This is the only way we can ensure the continued existence of stable and thus secure value chains.
   
   
   

These three strategic dimensions form the cornerstones of our sustainable corporate identity and our strategic orientation. Due to their fundamental importance for the ongoing development of our Group, we will assign the key topics of our sustainability agenda to these three dimensions in future. As overarching, holistic principles, they therefore complement the four categories of our Sustainability House: Product and Supply Chain Responsibility, Environmental Responsibility, Social Responsibility, and Responsibility for Employees.

The three strategic dimensions provide long-term orientation for our future actions and illustrate that sustainability can only be fostered in a holistic, integrated, and symbiotic manner due to the numerous interdependencies between different areas of action. We will therefore systematically incorporate these dimensions into our further planning and actions and take account of the current framework conditions and strategic requirements when filling them with life.

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