Winners

Diversity & Inclusion Award: Trouw Nutrition – Integrating people with intellectual disabilities        

Trouw Nutrition implemented a project in 2022 to increase the number of women in leadership positions and to help employees with intellectual disabilities in the operational area of the company. This project was aimed at promoting diversity and inclusion in the Brazilian labor market, as women and people with intellectual disabilities are often excluded from employment opportunities.

The company partnered with APAE (an organization which promotes aid for people with intellectual disabilities) to include women with mental disabilities in their operations, and as a result, increased the number of women in their operations by 9%, and involved 4 women in production leadership positions. By creating actions that allowed these women to enter the job market and promoting the development of people with mental disabilities, the company aimed to inspire other companies to promote similar actions for the inclusion of minorities in the Brazilian labor market.

Social Responsibility Award: Vopak – Go Alemoa Go project – Social project with the local community 

The Go Alemoa Go project is a social responsibility initiative promoted by Vopak in partnership with the WeConnect Foundation since 2018. The project is focused on Vila Alemoa, a community with a high level of social vulnerability located next to the company in Santos – São Paulo. The project aims to inspire other companies to promote social development projects in the communities where they operate.

The project contributes to various sustainable development goals and organized 26 activities involving more than 3600 people, including children, young people, and adults, through sports, cultural and educational activities – with Anne Frank and Johan Cruyff as inspirational figures. The project also started a social entrepreneurship program to teach young people how to structure their income-generating projects. Moreover, the project expanded its activities to two other communities in partnership with local social projects.

The project documented the history of those communities through audiovisual projects to showcase that these communities matter. Vopak employees are informed and involved through monthly newsletters and volunteering opportunities, contributing to the company’s commitment to the community and its social responsibility.

Environment & Climate Award: Supergasbras – Cooking oil collection & recycling

Supergasbras’ Super Recolhe project collects used cooking oil and recycles it into clean energy while avoiding harm to the environment. The project uses a closed-loop system where all revenue generated is returned to the community through social aid actions.

Per year, 500 million litres of used cooking oil in Brazil is incorrectly disposed or wasted. In the first year of the pilot, the project collected 1000 liters of used cooking oil and used all the revenue generated to distribute 500 meals to the Quilombola Community Santa Luzia. This initiative therefore not only benefits the environment by reducing waste and promoting clean energy but also has a positive social impact by providing aid to the community.

Audience Prize: De Heus: WOW Project – Circular waste management and reforestation

De Heus Brasil’s sustainability program, Responsible Feeding, joined forces with the Wow Project in 2022, which aimed to address specific common issues. The project’s focus was on “Olhar que transforma” or “Transformative Look” and aimed to address the issue of tons of plastic waste that ends up in the ocean every year, negatively impacting ecosystems and life quality worldwide. De Heus organized a voluntary cleanup event in cities where their offices are located. They collected more than six tons of waste, which was sent to recycling cooperatives. By doing so, De Heus has prevented pollution and the extinction of animal species.

Besides the recycling of waste, visits were organized with their collaborators to the Black Jaguar Foundation project in Santana do Araguaia to see the reforestation process and support the conservation of biodiversity.

Nominated Projects

AkzoNobel: Coral Women in Color – Aid women in difficult socio-economic situations 

AkzoNobel’s Coral Women in Color project aims to break gender biases by training women in difficult socio-economic situations to become professional painters, thus increasing the representation of women in the decorative painting market. The program focuses on providing inclusive professional training to women to recover their self-esteem and showing that there is no such thing as a man’s job.

The program successfully trained 14 women, improving their quality of life by around 8% (according to the Quality of Life Test by the WHO). All the women who participated in the program are now employable as professional decorative painters, with 10 women hired by one of the largest construction companies in Brazil, 1 rehired with better conditions, and 3 working as independent professional painters.

The project involved the collaboration of 12 partners, such as training providers, charities, and other manufacturing companies. It also offered trainings to the Páginas Coloridas platform to encourage consumers to hire female painters.

Heineken: Green Light Project – Promote women in sales

The Heineken Green Light Project aims to increase the representation of women in leadership positions within the company in Brazil. Amongst other interventions, this is addressed by the lack of women in sales teams due to the requirement of a motorcycle license, which only 15% of women who drive possess.

To address this issue, the Mobility Project was launched, which allows internal and external candidates to use their private cars instead of motorcycles for work-related transportation. This has more than doubled the probability of hiring a woman, resulting in 30% of the new hires being women. Additionally, 56% of the candidates chose not to use motorcycles, resulting in an increase in workplace safety.

The project includes a 100% online selection and admission processes, an inclusive training for leadership, and digital onboarding of new employees with attention to the inclusive culture. The success of the project has led to plans to implement it in all of Brazil’s operations in the next five years.

Philips: Improve healthcare in remote areas

The Philips Foundation is a non-profit organization established in 2014 with the aim of improving access to quality healthcare for the poorest communities worldwide, impacting 100 million people annually by 2030.

Through collaborations with NGOs, local entrepreneurs, governments, and healthcare providers, the foundation promotes digital solutions based on technologies that improve access to health. One such partnership is with SAS Brazil, a non-profit social startup that enables remote healthcare for those living in vulnerable situations. The partnership successfully implemented four advanced telehealth mobile units to provide specialized healthcare to patients living in remote areas.

Over a year, they surpassed their goal of 19,000 consultations and exams, reaching 29,000, with nearly 60,000 people directly benefiting. The project also developed technical protocols and processes for telehealth consultations and exams, including the first tele-ultrasound in Brazil and advanced tele-propaedeutic training for nurses and students. The success of the project highlights the potential for telemedicine to democratize healthcare access while underlining the need for further training for healthcare professionals in remote areas.

DSM: Circular agriculture and education on waste management

DSM Brazil has launched the Circular Program, a reverse logistics project aimed at generating income and dignity for vulnerable people in Brazil while preserving the planet from pollution caused by incorrect waste disposal. The program targets raffia, a polypropylene fiber used in agricultural sacks that is often incorrectly disposed of in landfills or burned in the environment.

DSM has established partnerships with agribusiness stores, rural cooperatives, and municipal departments for the implementation of raffia sack collection points. The company has also raised awareness through educational actions to promote recycling culture. The program has opened 43 physical collection points for raffia in cities throughout the state of São Paulo and has collected 1.2 tons of raffia, equivalent to collecting 44,000 PET bottles or compensating for carbon emissions from 26 car trips between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. DSM has recruited over 30 internal volunteers to work on the program, held more than ten hours of meetings with representatives of the municipal public power throughout the state of São Paulo, and created a digital bulletin with information on recycling and the circular economy. DSM intends to expand collection points to reach the entire Brazilian territory.

DSM: Animal nutrition – Reduce animal emissions through enzyme innovation

DSM is developing innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas- and ammonia emissions from livestock production, which is responsible for 14.5% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The demand for animal protein is expected to increase by 70% by 2050, leading to a growth of 445 million tons of animal protein.

To reduce emissions, DSM has developed feed enzymes such as RONOZYME ProAct protease and ProAct 360™, which improve feed digestibility, reducing the need for soybean meal in poultry and swine feeds and increasing nitrogen utilization efficiency. These enzymes considerably reduce the use of feed raw materials, resulting in a huge contribution to environmental impacts, especially in relation to greenhouse gas emissions and the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the fertilizer. In 2022, the combined use of both solutions generated a reduction of 1.8 million tons of CO2 emissions. These solutions help to improve the sustainability of livestock production and contribute to reducing the impact of the animal industry on the environment.