Sustainability
At the core of our business strategy: The global challenge
Feeding 9 billion people with more nutritious food and using less resources, while bringing better benefits to farmers and rural communities, is the biggest challenge that the agricultural sector needs to meet by 2050.
Major transformations and new approaches are required by the system’s stakeholders to support the agricultural sector and be able to respond to the challenge.
The United Nations have defined an agenda for sustainable development by 2030. This agenda defines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) that aim to create balance between the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of development. In addition to that, the SDG’s aim to promote peace and foster collaboration between countries and stakeholders to ensure the realization of the 2030 agenda.
Milestones of our sustainability journey
As a family-owned business part of the food sector, we recognize our responsibility towards future generations and food security, from farm to fork.
Throughout our 20+ years of experience, we have strived for procuring and distributing high quality and food safe spices, herbs and dehydrated vegetables from origin.
Environmental and social compliance have been essential benchmarks of our business model, but since 2017 we have taken an active approach towards sustainability. By working together on the upper supply chain, we have made significant progress on matters such as: social responsibility, environmental control, and quality assurance.
We work with responsible suppliers and highly qualified processors whom we encourage to work on good agricultural practices, working conditions, environment, and fair business practices. Our partners commit to these principles through our Supplier Code of Conduct and quality policies.
Engaging in Sector Collaboration to achieve Sustainability
Since 2019, we are an active member of the Sustainable Spice Initiative (SSI), a global platform that aims to transform the spices sector into sustainability.
Being part of this front-runner group of companies, we have committed to: Increasing our sustainable sourcing volumes with internationally recognized certifications that are socially and environmentally compliant & Collectively addressing sectorial issues such as: Child Labour, Climate and income increase.
Assessing our sustainability practices
Since September 2022, we hold an EcoVadis Gold medal in recognition of our sustainability performance and practices on environment, labour & human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.
We are placed in the top 3% of companies rated by Ecovadis in the Wholesale of food & beverages industry.
Responding to the global challenge
Our vision 2030
Learning from our previous work and experience, sustainability is now placed at the centre of our business approach.
Our long-term purpose is to secure the future of sourcing by fostering positive impact supply chains and building responsible partnerships, for the benefit of new generations and a more sustainable world.
With that objective in mind, we are committed to contributing to seven UN Sustainable Development Goals by providing high-quality products, supply chain solutions, product & market expertise, while having a clear sustainability vision towards 2030.
This means that while we continue conducting our business responsibly, our operations have a positive impact in the people and environment associated to them. This is the ambition that we want to achieve by 2030.
Transparency is important to us
In order to conduct business in a responsible manner, we have updated our internal documents with our 2030 Sustainability vision and the guidelines that we expect our partners to comply with.
Report-a-Concern system
European Spice (ESS), China Spice (CSS) & EKO Services strive to have an integral and transparent culture where its own employees, as well as external stakeholders have the right to speak up freely and without fear of retaliation.
Speaking up is an important value for us, but also the right action to take; this will allow our company to: Detect, Assess and Address a (potential) issue and its (potential) consequences.
With this purpose, we have opened our report-a-concern system, as a SpeakUp mechanism for in good faithreporting about an issue that directly or/and indirectly may influence our business. Anyone submitting a report under this approach, will be protected against reprisals and negative consequences after doing so.
