H+H develops, manufactures and sells aircrete products for construction projects in Western and Eastern Europe and is responsible for doing this in a sustainable manner – from a business, work and environmental point of view. This responsibility is an integral part of H+H’s activities.
Aircrete is an extremely eco-friendly building material, not only because of its excellent thermal insulation properties but also because it is easy on the environment during the production process. Most of the materials used in the production of aircrete, such as lime and sand, are readily available, non-scarce natural resources, and pulverised fuel ash is used as a raw material in some countries. This ash is a residual product from power generation at coal-fired power stations. At the end of their life cycle, aircrete products can be reused, for example as road base.
CR policies
H+H has a long tradition of sound ethical conduct and ensuring good health and safety and sustainability in its operations. As such, H+H has worked on CR for many years in practice, despite not having formal, consistent CR policies across the Group’s companies. Action has been taken individually in the various countries on the basis of local legislation, trends and, to some extent, traditions.
In 2011, H+H expects to prepare and implement general Group-wide CR policies in order to contribute positively to the Group’s development and take account of H+H’s external stakeholder groups and the environment.
H+H has provisionally formulated the following guiding principles for the CR focus areas of environment, health and safety, and business ethics within which the individual CR policies are to be prepared:
Environment
H+H is to work actively to reduce the environmental impact of its manufacture of aircrete, and H+H’s production and products are always to comply with applicable requirements and standards.
H+H is to work actively to increase the sustainability of its business in the production, transport and recycling of its products.
H+H’s product development is to focus on further improving aircrete’s positive environmental characteristics.
Health and safety
H+H is to be a safe place to work and is always to comply with statutory health and safety requirements wherever it does business.
H+H is to be an attractive and exciting place to work and able to attract skilled employees by offering competitive terms of employment and opportunities for personal and professional development.
H+H supports and respects internationally recognised human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including but not limited to:
- Freedom of organisation.
- Equal opportunities regardless of sex, religion, colour, ethnic or national origin and political convictions.
Business ethics
H+H is to comply as far as possible with generally accepted principles of good corporate governance.
H+H is not to participate directly or indirectly in corruption, bribery or extortion of any kind.
H+H is to ensure that all of its suppliers comply with certain CR-related minimum requirements.
Activities in 2010
As mentioned above, despite not having formal CR policies in place, H+H has conducted its business based on corporate responsibility for many years.
Examples of the results of this informal approach to CR in 2010 include the steps taken to reduce energy consumption at the Finnish and Czech factories – projects set to continue in 2011.
It was also decided to install a new facility for handling aluminium at the Czech factory in order to improve health and safety and increase flexibility in terms of using different types of aluminium.
In addition, the individual factories’ safety precautions and safety procedures were mappped with the aim of producing an overall policy for factory safety.