Efforts to re-establish the rapidly collapsing natural balance are speeding up in our country as well as worldwide. It is necessary to protect the natural resources and the environment, to stop the pollution of our most valuable heritage, water and clean air, and to reduce the threats to the ecosystem that are causing climate change, all of which call upon us to raise public awareness and to work towards sustainable economic development.
In all of its activities, Koç Group is committed to meet all national and international regulations and environmental standards and is constantly striving for progress. Koç Group seeks to improve its environmental performance through joint solutions to local and global environmental issues by sharing its experiences within the industry, and strives to be the country’s leading industrial group in its sensitivity toward the environmental, health and safety expectations. These commitments are also in line with the environmental principles of the UN Global Compact, which the Group signed in 2006.
Koç Group regards it as a duty to protect natural resources as required by national and international law, to use these resources as efficiently as possible, to reduce waste at the source or recycle them. Our Group invests in environmentally sensitive technologies and develops products based on future standards, while also supporting civil society efforts for safeguarding the environment.
“For My Country” Forests
The seventh and eighth items of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals focus on environmental sustainability and on creating a global partnership. These goals are also supported by the principles of the UN Global Compact. Today, carrying the greatest significance is preserving and increasing our forestlands, which contribute the most to both combating greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the ecosystems. As a result of establishing the 2008 project, “For My Country” Forests, we have collaborated with the Turkish Foundation for Combating Soil Erosion, for Reforestation and the Protection of Natural Habitats (TEMA), one of the most effective NGOs in Turkey.
Koç Holding has declared the last Sunday in May as “For My Country” day, which incidentally coincides with Koç Holding’s anniversary. Since May 2006, various social responsibility projects have been organized on this day with volunteers from the companies, employees, and distributors of Koç Holding. Managing some 387 social responsibility projects throughout Turkey in the past two years, the Koç Group initiated a campaign in 2008 that benefits Turkey with one major green project, For My Country, rather than with smaller individual projects.
Inaugurated with planting 700,000 trees across seven regions in Turkey, the Koç Group’s For My Country Forests will protect the groundcover, maintain continuity of biological diversity, preserve climatic balances, and combat erosion and global warming. In addition, the project continued at full speed in 2008 with smaller supportive and enriching green projects and with awareness raising campaigns, all made possible through the donations of Koç Group along with those of our employees, distributors, suppliers, and companies. As a result, awareness campaigns were organized for children and young people in the provinces where the forests are located – campaigns targeting school-age youngsters to instil them with a greater awareness of the environment and of the efficient use of natural resources. Additionally, green seminars were given to primary school students, whose schools had either been refurbished or whose requirements had been completed in previous years, and to scholarship recipients awarded by the Vocational Education: Crucial Matter for the Nation Project in cities where the forests had been planted, i.e., Mersin, Izmir, Tekirdağ, Giresun, Iğdır, Batman, and Karaman, as well as in the three major cities where our operations are focused: Istanbul, Ankara, and Kocaeli. After the seminars, students became members of Youth TEMA and Junior TEMA; a total of 3,000 students attended these events.
The Group companies also announced that they had planted an additional 494,020 trees through their own initiatives. Hence, a total of 1,194,020 trees, to include the For My Country Forests were planted in 2008, as a result of a clearly successful awareness campaign; the number of trees in 2007 was a mere 63,952.
Website: http://ulkemicin.koc.com.tr/