Sustainability

Our Bielsko-Biala facility continues to demonstrate our dedication to environmental stewardship and our positive impact in the communities where we operate.

Plastic consumption is a major environmental issue. This is due to the significant amounts of resources required in the production and because of the environmental contamination risk related to plastic waste.

In Poland, there is an opportunity to ensure correct waste management of plastic and at the same time contribute to the local community. How, you ask? By collecting plastic caps from bottles and donating them to the non-profit organization Teatr Grodzki who sell the caps for recycling.

Our facility in Bielsko-Biala collected 9000 plastic caps. These were donated to the non-profit organization Teatr Grodzki which organizes a wide program of artistic, educational and social activities for people in need and at risk of social exclusion.

Trelleborg, together with our partner company Kūrybos kampas 360°, organized four workshops this summer for young people in Taurage. The purpose of these workshops were to educate the children on waste sorting and the recycling of packaging materials, with nearly 100 children participating across the sessions.

Additionally, 55 copies of “Our House is on Fire – Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis” written by Greta Thunberg, Malena Ernman, Beata Ernman & Svante Thunberg were provided to Taurage county libraries to raise awareness of the environmental crisis.

Nathaly comes from Cauca, Colombia and works as a quality inspector on our nightshift at our Trelleborg facility. Nathaly arrived in Sweden a month ago looking for a job to support her daughter and mother in Colombia. Upon arrival in Sweden, she immediately started looking for a job and came across Trelleborg Group which led to her getting in contact with Firas al-Sahli, the Operations Manager at our Trelleborg site. Together with our subcontractor, Pike Personal, and Magnus Ivarsson, our site Production Manager, we managed to arrange a position for Nathaly.

At its core, her job is to carry out the finished product quality inspection. ‘I’m always thinking of how to improve and discover new things - this is something that I love!’ Nathaly says. ‘The best part of the job and working at Trelleborg? Without a doubt, it’s the people, everyone has been very welcoming and supportive.’

Nathaly continues ‘I was fortunate to both find a job and a place to live in such a short time after doing some “couch surfing” for a couple of weeks.’

Work-life balance

‘Working the night shift makes it easier for me to make all the arrangements needed when new to a country and has allowed me to start learning Swedish’ Nathaly explains.

Future plans

Nathaly misses her daughter who is 15 and studying at high school in Colombia and she looks forward to being reunited with her daughter soon. She also is aiming to achieve a higher level of Swedish fluency.

Trelleborg team Bambinis and Lohrbach municipality working towards a sustainable world.

Team Bambinis and their coach Marilena Messel from Lohrbach Football Club would like to thanks Trelleborg for their sponsoring of tracksuits for the team. The uniforms are identical to the tracksuits worn by all club members and the children are particularly proud to look just like the "big ones".

Team Bambinis think it's really great that Trelleborg is active in the area of sustainability. The team and their trainer decided to also make an active contribution to environmental protection. It is important, even with the children, to awaken an understanding of social commitment. Together it was decided that a fruit tree should be planted at each of the public playgrounds in Lohrbach and that the children should sponsor it. It's really something special when the children can  harvest the fruit from their own fruit tree. The municipality of Lohrbach was also involved in the project and the idea was also received with great enthusiasm here. The planting will take place in the coming fall.

It's nice to see everyone participating in this campaign with so much enthusiasm.

Our site in Lathen sponsored the local sports club DJK Eintracht Papenburg by financing new rain jackets for two of the youth football teams.

In return, about 50 club members including youth players, coaches, parents, and siblings, organized an event to clean up the nearby sports ground, playground, and forest.

Both small and big pieces of trash were collected and in the end the team could proudly hand over a mountain of rubbish to the city of Papenburg. After the successful clean-up, refreshments were served to the eager environmental champions. 

Teammates from Trelleborg Seals & Profiles in Aurora, Ohio, volunteered an evening to support the Ravenna High School basketball team, which is in an area that several of our employees live.

We were able to provide the students with a team dinner, which their team budget does not allow for.  This allowed the team to have some time to relax and enjoy a delicious meal following a rigorous practice.

Our team was able to spend time getting to know the students, and we are looking forward to more events with them in the future!

Every year at our holiday party, Trelleborg Seals & Profiles in Aurora, Ohio, holds a charity raffle.  All the money raised from raffle tickets, purchased by our employees, is donated to the charity we choose to support in that year.

This year, due to the pandemic, we were unable to have a holiday party.  Instead, we had a Team Appreciation Event, which included a food truck and a raffle for amazing prizes purchased by committee members Megan Howard and Renee Schoonover.  The committee selected two charities to support this year.  Employees could purchase raffle tickets either with money or by donating items from the charities' wish lists.

The first charity we supported is Safer Futures, which is the only domestic violence shelter in our county.  They operate a shelter as well as a 24/7 hotline to provide resources and referrals to those experiencing domestic violence or to provide information to friends and loved ones looking to support someone.  All calls are confidential.  Their wish included cleaning supplies and paper products to be used at the shelter. 

The second charity we supported was Lights for Kids, which is a local organization started by Olivia Messina, who was only 14 when she started the organization.   Lights for Kids collects battery-operated Christmas lights, which are then given to kids that are in the hospital.  This not only makes the hospital room more cheerful, but it also helps the nursing staff avoid turning on the overhead lights in the middle of the night when they are checking on their patients, allowing the young patient to sleep better.   Lights for Kids also collects a variety of kids books and toys to donate to pediatric hospital patients.

Due to the amazing generosity of our team, we were able to donate four large boxes of items in addition to a generous monetary donation to both charities!  Each participant in the raffle found it so rewarding to be able to give back to our community in a truly meaningful way.

Our colleagues in Värnamo, Sweden, have taken a step towards achieving the group's "50 by 25” climate target - To reduce its CO2 emissions by 50 percent relative to sales by 2025.

As a first step they changed to paper cups, but have now gone further, handing out personalized bottle to all employees in the production site, and thereby eliminating paper cups. Paper cups are now only available in the visitor area. This is expected to result in a reduction of around 100 000 plastic cups per year!

The Trelleborg community works with local charities to help those in need.

Recently, employees carried out a school supply drive for the less fortunate in town. Boxes where employees could donate school supplies and money were placed in all break rooms on site. Trelleborg did its bit by topping up the employee contributions with some funds of their own. All together this led to a large contribution of school supplies, helping 200 children go back to school with the right supplies.

Together, the Trelleborg community dug into their pockets to support families struggling to afford basic necessities, and this has assured a continued food supply for around 70 children into the next school year.

Increasing ecological awareness among the children.

In November 2021, our colleagues from our production site in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, organized educational workshops for around 100 children aged 3-6 from the kindergarten next-door.

The aim of the workshops was to increase ecological awareness and encourage environmentally friendly behavior among the children, by showing them how to replace plastic bags with cotton bags.

During the workshop children were shown cotton bush branches and learnt where cotton grows. Afterwards, using their own creativity, some templates, and a few accessories, the children painted cotton backpacks, which can be used to carry their belongings to and from kindergarten.

The workshops, besides increasing knowledge about ecology, developed their artistic skills and creativity. We are proud to be supporting the children’s learning and development, while at the same time contributing to a reduction in single-use plastic bags.

Committed to children

To support the challenges local children community faces, Trelleborg Tijuana kicked off the first event of uniform deliveries to a local football academy.
In this specific case the team worked together to identify along with the coaches a positive child, Farid was selected being an 11-year-old kid not only interested in football but also showing good grades.

Local Human Resources team had the opportunity to give the uniform to Farid and his father, the face of happiness shines on!