Ethical business - CSR

We are building a community

We operate across Poland, in large cities and small towns. We employ several thousand people and collaborate with local service providers and suppliers. We are everywhere, therefore we have many neighbours. For many years now we have been building our image as a business that shares its knowledge and experience with others and helps those in need. We are aware of our impact on the job market, the environment and local communities. We participate in charity and educational campaigns, sponsor cultural events and share with others in the name of building a community and being a good neighbour. We work with such partners as the TVN ‘Nie Jesteś Sam’ Foundation, who we help with selling teddy bears for charity, as well as the Wiosna Association, who we assist in their lollipop Valentine’s Day campaign. We provide patronage to such cultural events as the International Festival of Independent Cinema Mastercard OFF CAMERA or the Light Move Festival and Łódź of Four Cultures Festival held in the city of Łódź.

We cooperate with non-governmental organisations (foundations, associations), orphanages, nursing homes and single mothers’ homes, providing them with donations of needed supplies. We are mindful of the plight of animals and donate food to shelters and animal welfare organisations. Due to procedural reasons, we do not directly support individuals or organise public fundraisers in our stores. We provide help to those in need by collaborating with foundations and associations.

We Help However We Can

With support from our employees, in 2017 we initiated the ‘We Help However We Can’ campaign as part of Rossmann Club. The local nature of the campaign is one of its most important aspects, as it’s the employees of our stores who specify organisations working in the local area that we then invite to collaborate with use.

Why did we decide to implement this solution? Because in every larger Polish city or town there are hospices, shelters and nursing homes that, while not renowned on a national scale, for years have been providing help to hundreds of people in need and are well-known and valued among the local communities. Only in the course of the three initial editions of the campaign we were able to provide these organisations with donations worth over PLN 13 million.

Responsibility is the foundation of our activities

Acting in a responsible and ethical manner is inextricably tied to our business strategy. As a business, we create valuable and safe working conditions for our employees, act in an honest manner and react to the needs of our customers. We also care about the development of our environment. For us, corporate responsibility means not only participating in charity campaigns and donating supplies, but also ensuring a sustainable development of our entire organisation. We have begun transforming our good practices into procedures and policies, creating such documents as the Code of Ethics, Abuse Prevention Policy or Environmental Policy, and signing the Diversity Charter, wherein we made an undertaking to promote and respect these values among our employees.

Collaboration

We strive to become involved in various initiatives: we carry out renovations, support the Noble Gift campaign, clean up gardens and walk dogs. We also assist our employees in their individual projects aimed at helping others.

Since 2016 we’ve been collaborating with the ‘Kolorowy Świat’ Foundation which operates a nursery school and a primary school for children suffering from cerebral palsy and other developmental disorders. Trips for children under the Foundation’s care are one of our joint initiatives. Those in the Foundation’s care require special attention and every child must be accompanied by one caregiver.

Our volunteer renovation team has been aiding the Workcamp summer project, as part of which students from the Łódź University of Technology help renovate orphanages, using the experience and contacts obtained during their studies to transform care institutions. Our duties primarily include finishing works and cleaning. We also provide orphanages with required cleaning supplies and funds for the purchase of building materials.

We organise blood drives in collaboration with the Łódź blood donor centre. We are aware that by donating blood we save human lives. Since 2017 we’ve been helping our employees register in the bone marrow donor database.

We reduce our environmental footprint

We are aware that operating a business of our size is not without its impact on the environment. We believe that the scale of our operations obligates us to exercise particular care as to how our decisions and way of operating impacts the natural environment, which is our common asset. With future generations in mind, we follow the principles of sustainable development in our operations.

We strive to reduce the risk of negative impact on the natural environment to a minimum. Our activities include selective waste collection, optimisation of logistical processes, and reduction of energy and water consumption. In 2019, we equipped our stores with water filters that enable drinking water straight from the tap. Additionally, we stopped placing waste baskets at every workstation and we print our materials on ecological paper and only where necessary.

In mid-2020, in our store located in the Manufaktura shopping mall, we installed Refill Stations for our customers – machines enabling our customers to refill their reusable bottles with products such as shampoo, shower gel, washing or dishwashing liquid, thus contributing to a reduction in the consumption of plastics. We are systematically expanding our range of natural, vegan and waterless products.