Sustainability

Sustainable Development for Bolton Adhesives means doing good and prosperous business, respecting the rights of the people involved in our value chains, the communities around us and protecting the resources of the Earth, thanks to which our business itself stems.

Driven by our will, people and brands, we strive for healthy and sustainable growth to guarantee the prosperity of current and future generations.

That’s why we believe that our business development has to respect the people and the planet, imagining new solutions for the future and doing better in our daily actions.

Our Bolton Sustainable Development Strategy sets priority areas we want to focus on in the next years, clearly underlines high-level commitments in the long term and sets precise targets in the short and medium term. It has been adopted by Bolton Adhesives.

Our products touch the lives of millions of people every day and through our brands, we create value that is shared for the benefit of people and nature. 

The majority of our products are manufactured in our own factories in Germany and the Netherlands. We are aware of our social responsibility towards our employees, our business partners and the communities around us. We support an active participation of our employees.

In 2023, we have started to leverage our influence for sustainable supply chains by collaborating with Ecovadis the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings. We will progressively assess our strategic suppliers against their environmental and social performances and provide them guidance on how to improve in the areas of ‘Environment’, ‘Labor & Human Rights’, ‘Ethics’, and ‘Sustainable Procurement’.

To support the supply chain transparency also for our customers, both our productions sites in Bühl (Germany) as well as Goes (The Netherlands) were also assessed via EcoVadis in 2023. Both sites have earned a gold medal, attaining a score of 72 out of 100. This achievement places us in the top 5% of companies evaluated by EcoVadis.

Our activities are based on relevant laws, regulations and agreements on occupational health & safety and environmental protection. We are daily committed to systematically reducing risks in everything we do. In this context, we can ensure safe and sustainable workplaces that respect people and the surrounding ecosystem and offer opportunities for growth and development.

To meet these requirements in the long term, we are committed to operating an Integrated Management System in accordance with the international standards 9001, 14001 and 45001. We are also committed to continuous improvement of our environmental performance and to a zero-accident-policy.

We feel the urgent responsibility to contribute to tackling the global warming. We believe that everyone has a part to play in making a positive impact. That’s why we aim to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and do our best to protect the natural ecosystem on which are business depends. In 2024, we have published our second Corporate Carbon Footprint, which has been 3rd party audited and represents a robust baseline for setting a clear decarbonization strategy with concrete mitigation actions. 

Since 2017 we have reduced our CO2 emissions (scope 1 and 2)* by 42%. We have switched to 100% renewable electric energy as of 2022 in all our production sites and warehouses in Germany and the Netherlands as well as in our headquarter in Rotterdam. 77% of our waste is recycled or recovered, thus following our aim to create zero waste to landfill. We apply a strict water management with closed-loop cooling cycles to keep the water intensity** at a low level. We are also committed to sourcing our raw materials from suppliers as close to our production sites as possible. To date, we have around 300 raw material suppliers, 96% of which are based in Europe.

* 2023 compared to 2017.

** Water intensity index related to finished product = water withdrawal/tons products produced = 0,64 in 2023