Swiss Ethics Award: Dialog, visibility, value chain as key concepts
The jury of the Swiss Ethics Award selected the winners on May 29. These are three companies that stand out for their commitment to ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development.
The Swiss Ethics Award, organized by the School of Engineering and Business Vaud Canton (HEIG-VD) and launched for the first time in 2005, is an independent prize to promote ethics, sustainable development and social responsibility strategies of companies or public organizations. The aim is that such measures become natural and obvious to everyone. For this purpose, concrete projects are awarded, which encourage others to further develop or imitate them. This year, the following organizations were awarded:
PX Précinox - PX Impact
The gold value chain is a very sensitive topic. Many cases of lack of environmental protection, lack of compliance with working conditions and corruption are regularly reported by the press. To respond to this problem, PX Précinox SA, active in gold mining and trading, has implemented the PX Impact project. Its goal to provide responsibly mined gold by offering total transparency to its customers through traceability and the supply chain of its products. It also guarantees the extraction of mercury-free ore. Price increases charged to customers are used as a bonus system to fund local projects. The aim is to make a tangible contribution to the welfare and development of local communities.
ETHZ - Sustainability Report
ETH Zurich is the first university in Switzerland to publish a sustainability report. This report not only promotes a broad internal dialogue about the university's contribution to sustainable development, but also addresses staff and students with an interest in sustainability issues and gives them the appropriate visibility for their commitment. Fully transparent and self-critical, it provides insight into project developments, successes and challenges. This report helps to strengthen the mutual appreciation of academic service providers, non-academic staff and students and to promote ethical cooperation.
Association Ecoparc - Ecoparc
The Ecoparc association aims to promote sustainable development in the built environment. As an information hub, it organizes tools, methods and best practices for the public, private actors and public authorities. One of the association's great strengths is the quality and richness of its information, which is made available directly on the Internet. The Swiss National Library has also selected its website for web archives. The association acts as a mediator between the different actors of a project and is always ready to intervene to promote and facilitate the definition of standards for sustainable development.
Source: www.heig-vd.ch
