Clariant Services (Poland) SPolka Z o.o. featured in the 2022 Responsible Care Awards Gallery: “Supporting Ukraine and a sustainable EU society”
Company engaging employees
Since the very beginning, Clariant Poland focused on providing their employees with the most comprehensive information available in regard to humanitarian aid activation. They equipped them with links to regional organisations supporting Ukraine, gathering funds, and regularly updated lists of collected goods. Employees eagerly engaged in collecting goods, mostly by passing them directly to the City Hall of Lodz, or even using direct donations to certain families thanks to their private networks, but several of them also offered their homes to Ukrainian people who reached the city. Some colleagues brought the goods to the office and handed them over to the official collection point.
Many arriving women and children have been devastated by the war experience, therefore Clariant Services (Poland) Spółka z o.o, shared comprehensive guidelines on how to talk to Ukrainian families so that their employees hosting them can make them feel welcome and safe so they can adapt more easily to the new circumstances.
Company contributing to local initiatives
The company’s entity in Poland decided to contribute to the local initiative helping Ukrainian mothers to take care of their little ones so they can have a bit of free time to take care of all the necessities related to moving to a different country, searching for a flat or work, and organising their life from scratch. In Monopolis, the complex where their Shared Service Center is located, a special temporary daycare centre has been opened for the kids. The centre provides a safe and relaxing environment where the little guests can enjoy fun activities with volunteers and animators. On top of that, they handed over a couple of laptops to the centre to set up an Internet Café for the mothers.
They also helped to find a flat in Lodz for three families of employees from Ukraine.
Clariant foundation supporting the Red Cross
On a global level, Clariant Foundation supported Red Cross with a 100 000 CHF donation and UNICEF with the same amount. It is worth mentioning that numerous goods donations have been made by employees across the EMEA region and financial support from other parts of the company was also provided. Colleagues in Germany sheltered a couple of families from their site in Severodonetsk, providing them with company-owned apartments furnished with all the essentials (all colleagues traveled through Poland as the first support line).
What is more, acknowledging the extremely difficult situation of the people who were forced to flee their country due to an ongoing war, the company decided to open its recruitment process for those in need. Along with its current job offers, they have created additional generic vacancies open for own-initiative applications in Europe where they may be able to determine job opportunities at Clariant.
Clariant organised an alternative supply of water for people in the shelter of the industrial park in Severodonetsk. They also put their diesel generator as well as the diesel reserves at the site at the disposal of those staying in the shelter, so they could use them to generate electricity.
Last but not least, they launched an internal sports challenge and all the funds coming from this initiative, plus special management donation, will be transferred for humanitarian relief purposes in Ukraine (~€17 000).