CHARLOTTE, NC—With this year’s Sustainability Report, tesa SE presents its agenda for greater sustainability. The company considers sustainable action, production and management an essential aspect of its strategic perspective and has once again increased its efforts accordingly.
In 2020, the technology company, which is active in 100 countries, hailed sustainable growth as a key component of its corporate strategy. The core element is the new Sustainability Agenda. It serves as a blueprint to align the tesa business responsibly as well as holistically along the entire value chain. Subdivided into the areas Environment, Customers and Society, the agenda contains specific goals and measures that are clearly explained in the 48-page Sustainability Report 2020.
Climate Neutrality by 2050
“We’ve come a good step closer to our goal of operating climate-neutrally by 2050: Between 2018 and 2020, we managed to reduce our energy-related CO2 emissions by 23 percent,” explained tesa Chief Executive Officer Dr. Norman Goldberg.
Since the end of 2020, all tesa offices and production locations worldwide receive 100 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy or hydropower. Moreover, in 2020 we joined the initiative ‘Business Ambition for 1.5 degrees C’,” said the tesa CEO. With it, the multinational company commits to align its business activities with limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C and implementing suitable measures for this purpose. Only approximately 400 leading corporations worldwide have committed to this agreement.
An example of an innovative adhesive solution that helps tesa customers in the electronics industry to be more environmentally conscious are the tesa Bond & Detach products. Thanks to these tapes, different smartphone components, such as the battery, can be firmly bonded—and then removed without residue for repair purposes or at the end of the device’s service life. This simplifies recycling and saves resources. Over the past few years, more than 1.5 billion smartphones worldwide have already been equipped with tesa Bond & Detach.
Dr. Stefan Röber Is New Chief Sustainability Officer
“Our current portfolio is quite impressive. At the moment, we have almost 50 active projects which explicitly support sustainable action in product and technology development: two-thirds at product level and one-third at technology level. The spectrum ranges from tapes with adhesives made from bio-based monomers for smartphones to adhesive packaging tapes that can simply be disposed in the compost after use,” said Dr. Stefan Röber, head of tesa product and technology development for 14 years.
As of April 1, the Doctor of Physics will also take on the newly created position of chief sustainability officer. “The different facets of sustainability will become increasingly relevant and turn into an even more significant competitive factor,” said Dr. Goldberg. “We are therefore very pleased that Dr. Stefan Röber and his 500-strong international team of experienced product developers and engineers will drive the topic forward. Especially since there are great synergies between sustainability and product and technology development.”
€5 Million for COVID-19 projects
A separate chapter in the tesa Sustainability Report is dedicated to the corona pandemic. As early as Spring 2020, the company decided to make €5 million available to alleviate the need where it is greatest. The donations from the tesa Group are connected to the aid program of the Beiersdorf Group: ‘Care Beyond Skin’. The executive and supervisory boards at tesa have decided to support the global COVID-19 crisis funds run by Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children. Moreover, tesa donates in seven regions to local organizations selected directly by the affiliates—from Asia to North and Latin America as well as Europe.