FAQ
Questions we often hear at Tchibo.
This document contains some of the most common questions that stakeholders (GLOSSARY) ask us about the issue of sustainability (GLOSSARY).
Sustainability is a core aspect of our business strategy. In our day-to-day business, we check our activities from the point of view of ecological and social responsibility, and we optimise these activities if we need to. This approach is not limited to a single market or country. We have set a clear target for ourselves: to holistically and sustainably develop our company, all of our products and all of our important processes. To achieve this, we have created a management system with clearly defined objectives and responsibilities. Exchanging information with all relevant stakeholder groups in society is also part of our sustainability planning – this applies in particular to issues that we would not be able to tackle on our own.
It is often impossible to effect change if you’re on your own. Tchibo is therefore involved in an in-depth dialogue on sustainability issues with suitable, socially involved stakeholders and works hand in hand with very capable cooperation partners. Representatives from our Corporate Responsibility Department travel to conferences and take part in discussions and round-table talks associated with the topic. In addition, Tchibo is a member of several different committees and bodies so it can also make a contribution towards developing a legal framework that encourages social and ecological responsibility in business practices. Our partners in this process come from all walks of life – business, politics, academia and society at large – and we also work with them to put well thought-out projects into place that we would not be able to manage on our own.
At Tchibo, we work with suppliers from around the world to provide our customers with the very finest coffees and a wide range of consumer goods. When it comes to coffee products, most of our suppliers are farmers from what is known as the coffee belt around the Equator. In Latin America, the most important of these countries are Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Honduras and Guatemala. In Eastern Africa, our main source markets are Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, and in Asia, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea and India are home to the major coffee producers that we do business with.
For our consumer goods, we work with manufacturers in Asia, and our most important producers are from China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India and Turkey.
This global division of labour offers immense opportunities to all participants, but only if people and the environment do not end up footing the bill for progress. Tchibo therefore works with its strong partners to ensure that social and environmental standards are adhered to along the entire supply chain, both for our consumer goods and for our coffee products.
We have created a solid foundation for our efforts to establish and protect fair working conditions by drafting a code of conduct that is obligatory for all of our business partners – be they suppliers, our suppliers’ producers or any subcontractors involved in our business. This foundation is our Social Code of Conduct (SCoC), which incorporates internationally recognised core labour standards as defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO), and which uses the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a touchstone. Our Code of Conduct is part of every supplier’s contract and is therefore binding for any company from which we obtain consumer goods, no matter where it is in the world. These regulations represent the basic requirements that we expect of our business partners. If the labour and social laws of a particular market are stricter than what is outlined in the SCoC, these more comprehensive national laws are valid on their own. In addition, regular independent checks give us and our suppliers an overview of how things stand with the guidelines’ implementation.
Tchibo deploys a wide variety of methods to make sure that any personal information supplied by our customers is protected from misuse. Our measures include a comprehensive data protection management system, regular employee training courses, updates for our data protection regulations and the use of our own in-house Code of Conduct, which ensures that every single one of our employees is committed to data protection. Tchibo has also inspected all of the company’s advertising activities to check for flaws pertaining to data protection, and we have modified our advertising to bring it in line with new requirements. For example, our newsletter marketing activities now incorporate a double opt-in system: all customers have to give their approval twice if they want to receive the Tchibo Newsletter.
At Tchibo, this issue doesn’t just apply to the product that our customers hold in their hands at the end of the production and supply process – to us, quality is something we take a holistic view of, and we believe that it is important for every stage of production. For our coffees, this means that Tchibo pays extreme attention to every single step, from the selection of coffee beans at source to their transport, roasting and subsequent packaging. To live up to its own expectations, Tchibo has created a Food Guideline, an extensive set of rules that regulates the quality of our raw and roasted coffee beans and which applies in every single country and to all our sales channels.
Our quality promise also applies to the entire consumer goods supply chain, covering all phases from design to environmentally compatible disposal. All supplier contracts contain binding social and environmental quality requirements, and all product series are extensively tested for safety, stability and appropriate material properties. In addition to our own extensive monitoring, independent certified testing institutes carry out comprehensive safety reviews and tests for harmful substances.
Various seals and labels help our customers to easily identify sustainable products included in our portfolio. By way of example, in the coffee sector we cooperate with the standards organisations Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade as well as the organisations supporting the organic seal according to the EU regulations on organic farming. We also work with organisations such as Cotton made in Africa, Textile Exchange and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) for our business with consumer goods.
Tchibo draws on various options to protect the climate. We want to deal with the causes of climate change and concentrate our efforts on taking measures in the fields under our direct control: transport, energy consumption, fleet and business travel.
As a partner of the LOTOS (Logistics towards Sustainability) project we work to minimise carbon emissions related to the transport of goods. We rely on collective transport to optimise the use of truck capacities, we have our ships travel at reduced speed, thus reducing fuel consumption, and maintain a constant share of goods transported by train.
Tchibo also tries to reduce our energy consumption to counterbalance the causes of climate change. Measures taken include green electricity, energy-saving low temperature catalytic converters in the Hamburg roastery or energy-saving LED lighting of our shops and administrative buildings. In 2010, we started preparing our sites for the introduction of energy management systems (EMS). These systems will work as windows to our consumption levels and identify specific ways we can save energy.
We aim to minimise our fleet’s carbon footprint. Consistently, we have already replaced 258 out of 516 vehicles in our sales fleet with more economic vehicles.
As a family-owned company, we set great store by the satisfaction of our staff. We want our employees to feel at home in their job and stay healthy and motivated. We foster the Tchibo staff’s identification and solidarity with our company by maintaining our corporate culture, promoting an open and honest dialogue between all levels of the hierarchy and encouraging employees to get involved in shaping our company through varied channels. We are dedicated to promoting reconciliation of family and career, invest in safe and healthy workplaces and attach great importance to the education and further training of our employees. Diversity is another important factor in modern companies: Our diverse workforce is a true asset to our company. Tchibo takes a firm stand against discrimination. Providing equal opportunities also means paying appropriate, consistent and comparable compensation to our staff. We also offer our employees a comprehensive package of voluntary social benefits and company pension.
Tchibo gets involved in shaping society through “help them to help themselves” projects in the countries where we source our products as well as through engagement with social projects in our neighbourhoods.
In the countries where we source our products we work to promote education and training, helping to build schools, setting up childcare services, etc. By way of example, Tchibo has initiated a schools project in Benin together with the Aid by Trade Foundation, the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the German Investment and Development Organisation (DEG) and other organisations. Benin is one of the countries where cotton for our consumer goods is produced. In 2010 alone, we were able to supply school books and provide about 10,000 children with school uniforms. We also laid the foundations for the first of seven new school buildings. In Guatemala, Tchibo cooperates with local educational institutions to offer age-appropriate care and education as well as meals for the children of coffee farmers and itinerant workers.
Tchibo will continuously expand its community involvement to the benefit of people in the neighbourhoods of our sites, far beyond the countries where we source our products. Tchibo donates coffee products to local social welfare organisations – a means of proving the company a good neighbour. We also contribute to the RED NOSES donation campaign, take part in the Social Day, engage with the SeitenWechsel® project and get involved in the Corporate Volunteering Programme at Tchibo Poland.