Companies are already committed to the topic of sustainability in many ways and follow a wide range of initiatives (including the German Sustainability Code, ISO 50001, ISO 14001/EMAS, BSCI, GRI, UN Global Compact, FAO/SAFA, GSCP, ISEAL, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)). The ZNU Standard Driving Sustainable Change combines the sustainability requirements of these initiatives and has extracted its central fields of action, structured them clearly for companies and made them certifiable. It is thus the first holistic and externally certifiable sustainability standard in Germany.
The standard is issued by the ZNU - Centre for Sustainable Leadership. The ZNU is an application-oriented research institute in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Witten/Herdecke and sees itself as a scientifically neutral platform. To ensure that the standard is up-to-date and practical, it was developed in a broad stakeholder process together with businesses, science and certifiers and updated in a revision in 2023. This ongoing process, as well as the findings of the ZNU's sustainability research, ensures applicability from small organic companies to global corporations.
Companies that are certified according to the ZNU Standard Driving Sustainable Change promote the development of an integrated management system for more sustainable business. It is a standard at company level that serves the efficient exchange of information with relevant stakeholders, especially between suppliers, manufacturers and trade. It is a standard at site level that primarily focuses on supporting companies holistically in more sustainable trade and enabling the systematic and continuous improvement of performance in the environmental, economic and social dimensions as well as stimulating the learning process within the company. In doing so, all key sustainability issues in the company are highlighted. These must be credibly developed further in a continuous improvement process. Compliance is checked in annual review audits.
If you have questions about our quality management system, don't hesitate to contact our Quality manager Ms Carolin Stueber (Dipl. oec. troph.).
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