Sustainability is top of mind across all types of companies and industries. And VOX is determined to make a difference, not only within our own operations but also within those of our customers, which include some of the world’s greatest brands. We believe that our climate strategies are intrinsically linked, and we are therefore stronger when we work together.
VOX is committed to helping our customers measurably reduce their ecological footprint by working across their entire POP supply chain. By partnering with our customers on optimisation and innovation, we can improve the sustainability and effectiveness of their POP procurement.
What this means, the CEO of VOX Group, Brian Leech, explains, is that “our partnerships with our customers are strengthening as they recognise our determination to be aligned with them on our sustainability journey and count on us to drive their own sustainability imperatives.” We achieve this by comprehensively improving efficiency throughout one of their most significant outsourced supply chains, with real-world innovation and meticulous attention to detail”, Leech continues.
VOX's holistic approach
What makes VOX’s approach different from the rest of the industry is that we work with our customers across the whole supply chain. It is impossible to make a definitive impact unless you can oversee the entire supply chain from inception to deployment. Otherwise, if you oversee just one part of the supply chain, your input on a product’s overall carbon footprint is limited – and that means other inputs could ultimately undermine any sustainable choices made elsewhere.
As Leech summarises: “Our holistic approach means that we can reduce our customers’ carbon footprint from planning through design and manufacturing to execution, enabling an optimal POP strategy that keeps green business objectives at the forefront. There’s no need for our customers to compromise on quality while working towards reaching their climate commitments.”
This ethos is also reflected in our primary choice of material: steel. We’ve all heard of reduce, reuse, recycle, but we believe that recycling should really be a final resort. As each choice we make as suppliers has environmental externalities – additional costs beyond monetary ones, such as the energy expended on recycling or transporting the replacements – finding the most appropriate material is critical. Steel is more durable and adaptable than its alternatives, such as plastic or corrugate, and also offers infinite recycling without any impact on its quality – making it the greenest choice for our industry.
A path of continuous improvement
And to ensure we continue to measure up to our goals, VOX has partnered with EcoVadis – the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings. We are working towards achieving a silver medal in 2022 by improving performance across four categories: environment, ethics, labour and human rights. And our ambitions don’t stop there. As well as creating a plan with ten high priority areas to improve our EcoVadis score, VOX’s sustainability roadmap, reaching to 2025, provides a multi-pronged strategy. Central to this roadmap are key deliverables aligned to four of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
1) Deliver breakthrough innovation powered by a diverse workforce
2) Improve product sustainability and social accountability with the participation of EcoVadis
3) Reduce operational energy consumption by 20%
4) Reduce operational water consumption by 60%
Added to this, we have a Sustainable Procurement Policy, Supplier Code of Conduct and Environmental Policy – ensuring that we are comprehensively meeting our commitments to the environment, both now and in the future.
“We’re on a path of continuous improvement across our entire organisation, step-by-step becoming more sustainable,” Adam Sobocinski, VOX’s Development and Sustainability Director, comments. “We are also working in partnership with our largest customers and with the University of Cambridge on specific sustainability projects that have the potential to make meaningful and significant contributions to the reduction of plastics, carbon dioxide and end-of-life waste in future POP supply chains.”
We are looking forward to collaborating with our customers in even more innovative ways. And in doing so, VOX is aiming to meet the commitments of our sustainability statement and, in turn, execute our growth plan by supporting existing customers and by attracting new customers for whom protecting the environment is their primary focus.
As Leech concludes: “We are proud to be travelling on a structured sustainability journey with EcoVadis but we aren’t stopping there. Corporate social responsibility is very important to our customers. We’re committed to making sustainability an essential criterion within all the benefits that we aim to deliver to our customers, our stakeholders and our employees.”