Dethlefsen & Balk has decided on the implementation of a management system consisting of quality, environment protection, and health- and safety measures. The management has the responsibility for the company policy as well as the policy-derived objectives and programs. The management binds itself to abide by and inforce this policy through commitment on all levels, to follow the legal standards and to keep up a continuous improvement process. Aside from the already existing social, economic and ecological commitments, we have defined clear objectives regarding quality control, health-and safety measures, and to keep up continuous improvement of environmental performance as well as energy conser-vation. Our management system ensures that contracted requirements are met, and that all commercial and technical, organisational andindividual operations that have an impact on quality, environmental- work- and safety measures are planned, controlled and monitored.

1.1 Sustainability
With the implementation of our corporate interests, we bind ourselves to sustainable labour and resource-friendly implementation of our needs. Decisions on sustainability as long as they are reasonable and feasible have a higher priority within the scope of our entrepreneurial responsibility than economic interest. Cooperation with our suppliers only begins after verification of implementation of our guidelines. These verifications are generally administrative and are in part carried out personally by our employees directly in the countries of origin.
For our company sustainable management means to concentrate on- and prepare ourselves for future ecological, economic and social challenges.
Our products and production processes must be reliable, safe and environmentally compatible at all times. In order to achieve this, we concentrate on the following parameters:

• Quality- and sustainability consciousness of our employees
• The selection of eco-friendly raw materials
• Ecologically sensitive use of all operating resources
• Usage of resource-efficient production methods in order to minimize the impact on the environment i.e. to limit to an unavoidable Level
• Fair cooperation with our raw material suppliers
• Offer of minimisation of packaging materials: as little material quantity as possible and a high fraction of recyclable packaging materials taking into account product quality.
  

1.2 Environment:
We bind ourselves to abide by the international standards of environment protection taking into account the legal standards. The focus being to minimise the impact on the environment and to continuously improve environment protection. Our interests is to preventatively build up apply an adequate environmental management system. A resource-friendly application is already in place with the utilisation of:

• Generation of energy though solar plants
• Usage of eco-power
• Application of water-soluble, biodegradable packaging materials
• Participation in recycling processes 
• Focus on paperless administrative processes
• Focus on organically produced range and environmentally packaging materials in our offering
• Local and regional selection of service providers
• Switch to electronic vehicles.

This code of conduct is according to the guidelines of the German Tea Association and defines the principles and requirements of Dethlefsen & Balk GmbH for itself and its suppliers and service providers with regard to their responsibility for people and the environment.

Here you can download our Code of Conduct: