Camilla is leading BEWI’s change to a circular economy.

With a background in academia and a Master's in Industrial Ecology and a Doctor's degree in plastic use with a focus on collecting and recycling, Camilla is already leading the change. And it’s speeding up.
BEWI’s first Sustainability Director

It’s been almost a year and a half since Camilla joined BEWI.

When she tells me, she can’t quite believe it hasn’t been longer. And as you’ll see, it’s easy to understand her reaction. Because a lot has happened since she took on the role as BEWI’s first Sustainability Director. The most significant change is the creation of our sustainability strategy. It’s a milestone for the company and it has already led to important steps towards circularity.

With a background in academia and a Master’s in Industrial Ecology and a Doctor’s degree in plastic use with a focus on collecting and recycling, Camilla is already leading the change. And it’s speeding up.

Hello Camilla! Let’s start with BEWI’s sustainability strategy, why is it important?

– Without it, we wouldn’t know where to start nor where we’re going. Our sustainability strategy gives us a clear view of where we are today and includes well-defined targets for where we want to be in the future. It also specifies what we need to do in order to get from where we are to where we want to be.

What has been your focus during the past year?

– To implement and incorporate the strategy within BEWI and to start reporting progress. An example of this is that all business units now have their own, local sustainability strategies for 2023. This is the fruit of their work to assess the group strategy and make it their own. This way, each business unit knows what they need to do in order to support our targets.

How ambitious is BEWI’s sustainability strategy?

– There’s no doubt it’s ambitious. We have set out to lead the change to a circular economy and to do that we have to be bold. Right now I’m working to better understand what we need to do in order to abide to the Paris Climate Agreement. That means making scenario-based calculations in order to reach fact-based targets that in turn indicate what needs to be done. It’s already clear that the majority of our climate footprint come from fossil resources. This is a challenge but also a possibility, because if we reach our target, which is 50 % recycled raw material by 2030, we will decrease our CO2 emissions by around 52%.

What exactly does the sustainability strategy contain?

– Obligations to decrease CO2 emissions. The only way for us to do that is to change to a circular economy. And to do that, we need to cooperate with our entire value chain. But the sustainability strategy also includes respecting human rights and to work for social rights in our value chain.

How did you end up with our three strategic targets?

– When we worked with the strategy, we conducted a materiality analysis. The purpose is to identify and prioritize the issues that are most important to BEWI and our stakeholders. This process resulted in our strategic targets, which are the areas with the most negative impact, but also the greatest possibilities for a positive development.

Which are BEWI’s most important actions in order to reach these targets?

– Our targets are Becoming circular, Actively engage in partnerships and Contribute to an inclusive society. The most important action to becoming circular is our work done through BEWI Circular, which drives our change to a circular economy. However, this is a responiblitiy for everyone in BEWI and a good example of this is all our production facilities commitment to provide takeback systems to collect EPS waste from their customers and their local community.

BEWI Partner, which is our supplier platform for documentation of their sustainability work, is a great example of our actions to reach the second and third targets. It provides a clear picture of our supply chain and lets us follow up our supplier’s progress and that they meet our requirements.

I also want to mention BEWI’s culture. It’s already inclusive and focuses on our employees well-being, and we’re working actively to maintain and improve it. Our culture is also cooperative and open, which helps to form long-lasting and productive partnerships.

What else are we already doing to become more sustainable?

– We continuously talk with our suppliers to find ways to deliver more environmentally products and services. One good example is our suppliers of styrene, which is the raw material for many of our products. By requesting information about their climate impact, we are in a position to choose to buy the styrene with the lowest environmental impact, lowering the CO2 emissions in our value chain but also increasing the demand for styrene with a lower CO2 footprint.

We’re also looking at how we can develop products that can be reused several times. Our focus is on reuse, to make things that aren’t single-use and that can be recycled and reused over and over again. That’s where we can make the biggest difference.

What will we report on in the annual report?

–Our materiality assessment defined what we will report on, which is; circular economy, climate change, supply chain, health and safety and employee wellbeing. We are for the first time using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard which defines what we as a company have to report on.

 What are BEWI’s main achievements over the past year?

– That BEWI is 33% circular in our annual output of hight turnover products. This is a big achievement and shows we’re making progress. We tripled our collecting capacity by going from 5 049 tonnes to 18 868 tonnes. Our business unit Sweden reached 68% renewable energy for its operation. W’re very pleased with this and these milestones show the strength of our sustainability strategy. We’re just getting started.

 Thank you so much Camilla! Just one last question, what does Leading the change mean to you?

 – To be bold and push on. We should take a risk and believe in that circularity is the solution. We have to lead the way and break new ground, even if it isn’t always profitable. It’s also important to be open and invite others to cooperate with us, because circularity can’t be achieved on our own. To sum up, we need to continue to do what BEWI has always done – to take a risk and be bold. That makes us a leader, it shows others the way.