Symrise joins AIM-Progress initiative for more sustainable and equitable supply chains

Published: 16-Mar-2021

AIM-Progress provides members with a forum for collaborative exchange, mutual audit recognition, continuing education and networking

Symrise has joined the international initiative AIM-Progress. The Association des Industries de Marque (AIM, the European Brands Association) unites leading consumer goods manufacturers and their suppliers committed to sustainability and respect for human rights throughout the supply chain.

AIM-Progress provides members with a forum for collaborative exchange, mutual audit recognition, continuing education and networking with similar initiatives. The initiative makes it possible for Symrise to exchange information with customers and suppliers.

Furthermore, it enables developing joint strategies to make supply chains more sustainable and equitable quickly, efficiently and comprehensively.

“We have set out the framework for responsible procurement in our Supplier Guidelines and our Supplier Code of Conduct, which we developed in 2016,” says Bernhard Kott, Chief Sustainability Officer at Symrise.

“Membership in AIM-Progress will help us to improve existing processes. Thanks to the mutual recognition of audits, we can, for example, assess our suppliers more quickly according to sustainability criteria.”

To this end, AIM-Progress has developed a four-stage process that checks compliance with common quality standards, among other things. This allows participating companies to see, which suppliers have already been assessed and how, for example in terms of sustainability criteria and quality.

In addition, AIM-Progress looks at human rights compliance throughout the supply chain. In doing so, it helps members develop meaningful auditing procedures for suppliers, as well as establish opportunities for employee involvement and ensure the payment of fair wages.

Likewise, AIM-Progress provides information on how companies can verify human rights compliance, how workers can report violations and how companies can procure goods from sustainable sources.

For this purpose, AIM-Progress provides guidelines and conducts training courses together with its members.

Symrise wants to expand its assessment of suppliers Symrise uses around 10,000 mainly natural raw materials from more than 1,000 suppliers from over 100 countries for its products.

In doing so, the company aims to source its raw materials as sustainably and fairly as possible. For this reason, the company has already designed its supply chain in such a way that it can trace all of its strategic raw materials completely back to their source.

In addition, the company has already assessed more than two-thirds of its main suppliers according to sustainability criteria, who together account for 80 percent of its procurement volume. By 2025, this figure is expected to rise to 100 percent and consequently the procurement volume covered is expected to reach 90 percent.

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