Our vision on sustainability
At Vandersterre, we believe that a clear vision and well-founded perspective on sustainable development is essential for a future-proof family business. As integral part of our strategy, we have formulated such a vision on a sustainability vision, guiding our investments and setting priorities for years to come. This vision also guides our daily business operations as we actively seek to pursue sustainable development.
Our sustainability vision is centred around a goal – a point on the horizon and an ambition to work towards in the years to come. Our vision is that by 2030 Vandersterre will be a climate-neutral company.
To achieve this goal, we strive to:
1 Make our product mix more sustainable, with increased focus on environmentally friendly product categories (e.g. organic, Jersey and climate-neutral or -positive products)
2 Reduce the environmental impact of our average product through optimising our own processes and building on cross value-chain collaboration with our key partners
3 Compensate the unavoidable emissions from our business operations through offset- and inset-projects.
Four priorities for sustainable development
To achieve this vision, we have formulated four priorities on which we will work in our organisation, with our products and with our partners to accelerate sustainable development. These four priorities are:
We want to help our customers and consumers make informed decisions about more sustainable products by
We are also focusing on improving the recyclability of our packaging, so that the cover reflects the values of the products wrapped inside.
We take good care of our people by providing a sustainable, motivating, challenging and fit-for-purpose working environment. This includes promoting a healthy lifestyle and empowering our employees to make more sustainable choices in both their work and private lives.
We want to continuously improve in the area of social sustainability and that’s why we are committed to making it measurable.
We want to implement sustainable development in our processes at a faster pace than the national climate policy requires us. This calls for investments in optimising and improving our processes.
We are doing our bit in the transition to less polluting energy sources, including operating without the use of natural gas. This transition is also being applied to our methods of transportation, where technological advances give us the opportunity to become more sustainable.
We want to support sustainable development where it can have the greatest positive impact. That is why we work together with our most important suppliers and partners to realise a more sustainable value chain – from farm to fork.
Applying new ways of agriculture (e.g. regenerative agriculture) is part of the approach to reduce emissions within the value chain.
A CSR quality mark certified company
In August 2023, Vandersterre received its ISO 26000-compliant CSR quality mark from MVO Nederland. The audit for this was successfully completed by the sustainability advisor, corporate development director and HR.
Over the past two years, Vandersterre has taken action to improve the social sustainability within the company and to reduce its impact on the environment through, energy-saving measures, co-operation with responsible partners and more efficient use of resources, a.o. These efforts were verified by the auditor who also conducted interviews to see if the sustainability policy was also well-known among the staff. In the end, Vandersterre was awarded the bronze seal of approval, one step above the basic level. Our ambition is to continue to measure our sustainable development in the coming years and to work on improving the quality mark level to silver and eventually gold.
If you are curious about what we do as a socially responsible company, read our new CSR annual report here
We would welcome further discussion about how we can work together towards a more sustainable world.
