Enviroment and Climate

Adel’s Environment, Energy and Climate Policy is the main document combining principles which regulates corporate behaviour with regard to environment and climate protection binding for all our operations. As an extension to our value chain, suppliers and business partners have a significant impact on our environmental and climate performance. Therefore, we prefer that they also adopt similar working principles.

1. PURPOSE & SCOPE

ADEL Environment, Energy & Climate Policy aims to frame ADEL’s position, strategy and management approach on environmental, energy and climate aspects in relation with its operations.

This policy is binding for all ADEL operations including subsidiaries and applies to ADEL and subsidiary employees.

ADEL adopts a holistic vision on sustainability which requires a management approach considering impacts throughout the value chain as a whole. In this regards, all our suppliers and business partners are integral actors of our value chain, thus obliged to comply with our corporate policies which sets out our social, environmental and ethical operating standards.

2. ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY and CLIMATE POLICY

Biodiversity is under threat and climate change is also becoming increasingly impactful for the globe. These issues have significant impacts not only on the environment but also on the economy and the society. For the very reason, fostering environmental sustainability is not only doing the right choice for the society but it is also essential for the future success of our business. Therefore, ADEL puts a strategic importance on environmental sustainability with all related aspects including responsible use of natural resources such as water and forestry products, energy efficiency, waste management, emissions prevention and protecting biodiversity, as a core business matter.

For that matter, we conduct responsible and environmentally friendly operations in every location we are present. We continuously work to mitigate all environmental risks, prevent any adverse environmental impact which may occur during our operations as well reduce environmental impacts of our products.

We value stakeholder engagement for finding solutions to common problems. For that end, we enable our stakeholders to voice their concerns and we work to respond them. In this vein, we are always open to engage with NGOs and local communities in developing our environmental performance, taking collaborative actions, participating in projects and with international initiatives, organizations and public authorities for contributing to the development of general and actions regarding broader environmental sustainability agenda.

Therefore, we commit to act in line with following principles and undertake actions, where appropriate, over time:

GOVERNANCE & COMPLIANCE >>

• We act in strict compliance with all applicable local and international regulations and legislations; and in absence of these, we set our own standards ensuring minimum impact on environment.
• ADEL Board of Directors (BoD) is the highest governance body responsible of our environmental and climate management program. Together with related committees, BoD sets corporate principles, strategic approach and vision; regularly check risks and monitor management performance with regard to environmental management as a whole including all above mentioned related aspects.
• Senior management is responsible for following corporate principle and putting strategies outlines by the BoD into practice, managing environmental risks, complying with regulations and developing performance. For that matter, senior management is directly accountable to the BoD.
• ADEL employs a dedicated staff for managing environmental issues, establishes environmental systems; ensures system reliability via internal audits.
• ADEL aims to continuously reduce the impact of its activities on environment and climate. In the pursuit of continuous reduction of impacts on environment and climate, we regularly monitor performance, track realization of targets and keep their records in our reporting systems. In order to enhance performance, we link realization of environmental and climate targets to performance evaluation system which has a direct impact on employee remunerations for all seniority levels.
• Awareness is the key for the success of our environment and climate program. Therefore, we communicate our environmental priorities and commitments to our employees to raise awareness and improve their skills.

FOCUS AREAS >>

• Water Use & Waste Water
• Protecting Biodiversity and Environmentally Friendlier Material Use
• Energy, GHG and Air Emissions and the Climate Change
• Solid Wastes
• Environmental Protection
• Packaging

WATER

Water is a major natural resource that we use in production. We also recognize water as a basic resource getting scarce and communities will need more clean water in future. Increase in demand on water resources to meet the needs of the increasing population, and the limited amount of existing resources running into danger due to climate change, will result in a bigger stress on clean water resources in future.

For this reason, we periodically monitor our water use, track performance and set targets for reduction. For that end, we conduct water efficiency and recycling practices.

Water use eventually results in waste water. Responsible management of waste water is not only effective for controlling excess use of resources but also important for protecting biodiversity value of water resources. For that end, we employ cutting edge technologies for waste water treatment, regularly monitor waste water quality and quantity and keep records of performance. We discharge waste water to receiving environments which are specified in legal discharge permits only after the output quality parameters reach to the limit values indicated in regulations and discharge permits.

ENERGY, CLIMATE CHANGE & EMISSIONS

Climate change is a raising concern which poses environmental, social, economic, operational and regulatory risks globally and will negatively affect social and economic lives as well as bringing direct or indirect risks on businesses. As ADEL, we acknowledge our responsibility and anticipate risks that the climate change may pose for our business.

Therefore, we work for reducing our carbon footprint by efficient use of energy resources.

We periodically monitor our energy use, track performance and set targets for reduction. For that end, we invest in energy efficiency projects for continuous improvement. By this way, we also reduce GHG and other air emissions such as NOx, SOx, although these values do not reach significant volumes.

For that matter, we monitor our logistics operations and energy use regularly and work for optimization through practices such as, better material delivery and route planning, efficient vehicle choice and smarter stowage.

BIODIVERSITY, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION, ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY MATERIAL USAGE & PACKAGING

ADEL aims to avoid any adverse impact on the environment, especially on biodiversity values of its operational geography. Therefore, we do not locate production facilities in regions that hold high biodiversity value or are under protection in order to avoid negative impact on biodiversity in terms of water resources, air quality, land availability, or species diversity.

Forests are our major allies for combatting the climate change as they are natural carbon storage portals. For this reason, deforestation is a significant problem when it comes to the climate change. On the other hand, as far as our operations concern, forests are our most significant raw material providers such as wood, paper and cardboard. Therefore, protecting forests, for us, is not only a way of combating the climate change but also a smart choice for preventing our most valuable raw material from extinction.

For that matter, we work for reducing our forestry material use with smarter product design, look for employing alternative materials and most importantly employing forestry products sources from industrially managed forests and certified accordingly such as FSC certification. For the same reason, we also support reduced packaging by optimizing the volume and weight of packaging materials, promoting recycled or alternative material options.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Our goal is to avoid pollution of soil, water and air by minimizing the waste generation. For that end, we use resources efficiently; sort the solid wastes at the source, limit the disposal to landfill and maximize the reuse, recycle, recovery rates.

TRANSPARENCY & REPORTING >>

We communicate our environmental policy, strategies, targets, achievements and other related activities to all internal and external stakeholders in a transparent manner and report them regularly complying with internationally accepted standards such as Global Reporting Initiative’s G4 Reporting Framework.

As for all business aspects, Adel Board of Directors is the most senior decision making body responsible for determining strategic approach with regard to environmental and climate protection. The Board adopts a risk/opportunity assessment based approach to define corporate strategic priorities. The General Manager, is the direct responsible of putting strategic approaches into practice together with the senior management. They define performance areas and define appropriate qualitative and quantitative objective to be used during the performance evaluation process. All these practices are carried out by environmental business unit organized under the Technical Directorate. Sustainability Work Group formed in 2015 became a body where environmental and climate issues are discussed with a cross-functional perspective which boosts coordination between related functions regarding planned initiatives. Environmental management system and practices are subject to internal audits and performance evaluation process, hence the outcomes are reported to the senior management regularly for their review.

Environmental aspects of our business processes and distribution of responsibilities are defined in the process guidelines and communicated to related process managers and employees.

In order to maintain a sound environmental management system and continuous development, in 2015 Adel invested 781.000 TL as managerial costs and investments. During 2015 we did not receive any environmental grievance nor fines regarding our operations.