The 2014 German Sustainability Awards were presented in Düsseldorf on November 28, 2014. Symrise placed among the top 3 in the special award category “Resource Efficiency.” With this award, the foundation is recognizing Symrise’s responsible use of resources along the entire value chain and continual development and application of innovative approaches for greater efficiency. For seven years now, the Stiftung Deutscher Nachhaltigkeitspreis e. V. (German Sustainability Award Foundation) has been promoting sustainable developments by recognizing the best achievements in this area.

In its statement, the jury noted that Symrise develops effective solutions with its products and processes that successfully contribute to resolving present and future societal challenges. The world’s population and its basic needs for products in the areas of health, nutrition, care and well-being are constantly growing. This fact makes it all the more necessary that companies use the available resources in an efficient and environmentally sound manner – particularly with regards to the cultivation, production and distribution of foods and the energy used to accomplish these feats.

Symrise uses a wide range of natural raw materials and has therefore anchored the efficient use of resources along its entire value chain as a central element in its corporate strategy:

For instance, Symrise sources one of its main natural raw materials, the onion, from the local Weser uplands region and processes them directly on site in Holzminden. This keeps transport distances short, saves on energy and storage costs and results in a neutral water balance. With the “SymTrap” procedure developed by Symrise for concentrating natural extracts, the company can extract maximum flavor from the onion while using 100 % of the original material.

The energy used in this process will soon be even more sustainable when the company’s own combined heat and power plant goes online. With this step, Symrise will save about 40 % or 31,000 tons of CO2 each year. It will also reduce energy costs by about € 650,000 per year.

The German Sustainability Award Foundation also placed a particular emphasis on Symrise’s program to improve efficiency – Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). In this program, employees suggest measures that could improve the company’s performance and efficiency. Fifty-two TPM coordinators manage the various projects. Since 2007, the company has received nearly 3,000 proposals and suggestions. This has reduced total costs by 2.5 % and the company saves 263 tons of CO2 emissions each year as a result.

“Symrise is setting an important counterpoint against the backdrop of the high consumption of resources in the production of food and care products,” stated the jury for the German Sustainability Award. “That is why we are recognizing Symrise’s efforts to achieve the utmost resource efficiency in the top 3 of our special award category “Resource Efficiency”.

“We are proud of our success at the German Sustainability Awards 2014. Our placement in the top 3 of the special award category “Resource Efficiency” shows that we are on the right path with our approach of anchoring sustainability in our corporate strategy,” says Dr. Helmut Frieden, Head of Sustainability Initiatives at Symrise. “This recognition is an incentive for us to keep working together with customers, suppliers and employees to identify further efficiency potential in our supply chain. We will source and process our raw materials locally whenever possible, develop forward-thinking products with minimal use of resources and continually optimize the processes and ingredients of existing products.”