THE ERA OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Suzano’s sustainability strategy lies at the core of our Cultural Drivers. Due to the nature of our business, which depends directly on natural cycles, and to the positive relationship with the communities in the locations we operate, this topic has always been essential for us. In 2019, after our merger process, we began to analyze our social, environmental, financial, and governance performance in an even more systemic manner, leading to a structural change in our operating standards, in new product and market developments, and in how we engage with our stakeholders. Therefore, we aim to consolidate our role as a reference in this important movement, summarized today through our finances with the acronym ESG, meaning Environment, Social, and Governance.
In Suzano’s evolutionary journey, we understand that sustainability is an essential part of the business. How, then, can we progressively materialize it in all of our deliverables, processes, and relationships? In February 2020, the company released its Long-Term Goals, publicly making ambitious commitments that must be carried out by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement proposals and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The year 2020, however, brought an unprecedented crisis, accelerating the notion that the role of leading companies like Suzano—present in the lives of more than 2 billion consumers on the planet—is to contribute, through its operations, to the construction of a better and more sustainable future for all.
The concept of stakeholder value is based on the principle of creating shared value, which means that as important as creating value for shareholders is creating value that is shared with our various stakeholders who are part of the ecosystem in which we operate.
All society benefits, for example, when our organization works to replace raw materials of fossil origin with more sustainable solutions, extracted from our renewable forests. Society is further strengthened by education and income generation programs geared toward neighboring communities or through ambitious actions to reduce and capture CO2 originating from the company’s production processes. The fronts seeking this convergence are many and growing.