Community Spirit
Community Spirit is Boehringer Ingelheim's corporate social responsibility initiative. By working with organisations and charities close to our hearts the Community Spirit program has helped to improve lives around the UK. The program also raises awareness of local needs and subsequently promotes social inclusion of vulnerable groups. All employees can become involved with Community Spirit and a committee has been established to ensure that requests for help are considered fairly and consistently.
Support is provided by:
- Charity of the Year
- Supporting local talent
- Employee sponsorship
- Payroll Giving
- Community Spirit leave days
- VTI day
- Environment
Each year charities are nominated to become Charity of the Year Employees vote for a charitable organisation and the successful candidate will be supported with fundraising activities throughout the year such as a sponsored walk and car wash, doughnut sales, raffles and Christmas Bingo.
Boehringer Ingelheim employees have chosen Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust to be our Charity of the Year 2009. The trust exists to find a cure for childhood and adult Brain Tumours through funding research and to offer support, hope and information to patients and their carers. The Charity has become the largest brain tumour support charity and single funder of laboratory based brain tumour research in the United Kingdom.
We care for our neighbours
Community Spirit sponsors Art into Industry Boehringer Ingelheim are working together with a local school to support their art into industry initiative. By leasing art work produced by children between the ages of 14 and 17 the school can raise funds and help promote the children’s work into a business environment.
Many employees participate in an activity or a sponsored event to raise money for a particular organisation. Boehringer Ingelheim actively encourages this and offers financial assistance.
Employees can use these special leave days to make a real difference to people's lives. Many local organisations require assistance and employees have the opportunity to get involved with the local community. A school could require someone to listen to children read or an old people's home may need help with decorating or gardening.
Boehringer Ingelheim operates a Payroll Giving Scheme. Employees have the opportunity to donate to any UK registered charity and all donations are made before tax and after National Insurance so employee contributions are not affected. This ensures that the charities receive maximum benefit.
VTI day occurs in April each year and employees participate in projects to benefit the community. This could be providing a service, such as helping clean up a local park, or participating in a sponsored activity to raise funds for our Charity of the Year.
Other organisations to benefit have included a family and play therapy group for young children with special needs and 2 local centres for people with learning difficulties. Employees improved their outside areas by hard landscaping, planting and painting to maximise their potential development. Blankets were knitted to help keep the elderly warm and a team of volunteers filled 500 boxes with essential household items for distribution to deprived areas overseas. Some employees opted for a major clean-up of the Bracknell parklands and spent the day clearing invasive species from local beauty spots. These projects will encourage employees to participate in further community activities and prove that we can get results.
We have made a commitment to act with responsibility towards the environment. We recognise that our business activities may have environmental consequences and as a result are committed to understanding and minimising their impact.
In relation to waste management this means waste reduction takes first priority. Where waste reduction is not possible we will endeavour, wherever practically possible, to recycle waste materials, including the reissue of equipment to legitimate parties, for examples charities.
Over the past 5 years our overall waste has reduced by 20%.
During 2008 we recycled 888 tons of plastic. The majority of the plastic is directly from our manufacturing process. However, the figures include plastic coffee cups, plastic waste generated by the shredding of rejected unit dose vials and other general plastic waste. We also recycled 135 tons of paper and cardboard during 2008, which includes waste paper from office bins, and therefore saved around 1800 trees.
In addition to the above we also recycled 40 tons of metal, 1 ton of glass, 80 tons of general building waste, 2 tons of organic solvent, 5 tons of oil and old computer CD’s. Our efforts bring our overall recycle rate in excess of 80%. Mobile phones and old computers were sent for reuse.
As part of our commitment to environmental issues we have since 2006 been working in partnership with the local authority to allow them to use our waste water, this water is directly from our purification plant and is uncontaminated. Before this initiative a large quaintly of this water was going down the drain as waste, however this water is now stored on our site and collected by the local authorities for watering the local landscape and other community projects. This partnership won us the Pride of Bracknell, Eco Hero, award in 2007.