Worldwide engagement

STILL acts a socially responsible company at all of its locations, nationally and internationally. Among its activities, in the Czech Republic STILL enabled the non-governmental organisation Cesta Dom to purchase a much-needed new ultrasound probe for the treatment of critically ill patients in their own home. At the same time, the company enables children in need in the Czech Republic to attend summer camps that offer a host of leisure and sporting activities as well as comprehensive support.

In Poland, STILL supports the Miasto Dzieci (City of Children) project. It is dedicated to reaching out to children from poorer families to provide them with playful ideas on a possible future career choice. And with the STILL Pomaga Dzieciom (STILL Helps Children) project, STILL even became an initiator of child relief in Poland. Launched in 2013, in collaboration with partner organisations the project provides children from needy families with anything ranging from donated clothing, through school supplies and medicine, to Christmas gifts.

Giving young people with a migratory background a chance has been an integral part of STILL’s community engagement for some time now. The company supports the NORDCHANCE and NORDCHANCE Plus projects of the German Nordmetall employers’ association. These initiatives offer young people in need the chance to gain a vocational entrance qualification and smooth the way for them into vocational training. Of these initiatives, the NORDCHANCE Plus project is aimed specifically at young refugees. A number of young people have already taken up this opportunity, completed internships at STILL and then transitioned smoothly into training. Everyone is a winner: the youngsters have a chance of a promising career, and STILL knows that it has promising young employees with great potential in its ranks.

It has already become a firm favourite and quite a tradition. Just as in every previous year, in 2017 the ForkliftCup took place once again at the end of September. Now in its 13th year, forklift truck drivers of all genders showed off their skills over the course of the three-day competition. 200 entrants, including 15 company teams and 19 international teams fought it out against each other for the German, international and company championship titles.

Just as important as this major sporting event are the various charity initiatives held since 2008 by apprentices of Linde Material Handling’s PiA (Project-integrated Training) team. They have already raised over €250,000 over the past few years, also with the help of a raffle, for the non-profit organisation StaplerCup hilft e.V. This year around €21,000 was donated to social organisations from the Aschaffenburg region. Among other recipients, the volunteers of the Aschaffenburg Outpatient Child and Youth Hospice Service were delighted to receive over €4,000.

Research is also a focus of Linde Material Handling’s dedication to society as a whole. With an in-kind donation of an E50HL truck, in 2017 Linde Material Handling supported the work of the students at the Institute of Material Handling and Logistics at the University of Stuttgart – one of Germany’s oldest material handling institutes. In doing so, Linde Material Handling is helping with the practical training of the next generation of logistics experts, and also ensuring it has access to the latest research findings.

Helping socially disadvantaged people is what the French Linde subsidiary’s specific commitment. As part of its community engagement, the company is supporting the French initiative ‘Restaurants du Coeur’ (Restaurants with a Heart), which has been distributing food and essentials to the needy in France since 1985. Every year since 2014 Fenwick has allowed its employees to dedicate half a working day to the initiative to participate in the Volunteers for the Day campaign. As part of this, they talk to supermarket customers outside stores, encouraging them to donate some of the items they have purchased to Restaurants du Coeur. The initiative is very popular with Fenwick employees: in 2017 alone, 288 responded to the call to participate in the initiative.

In addition to its employees’ volunteering activities, Fenwick also actively supports Restaurant du Coeur by providing technical equipment to distribute the donated goods. This is an important undertaking given the success of the collection campaign: on the two campaign days in March 2017, 76,000 volunteers collected 7,516 tonnes of food and hygiene products at 6,830 supermarkets.

For several years now, KION North America (part of KION Americas) has supported the Dorchester Children’s Center in South Carolina as part of its social engagement activities. The children’s home, which is situated close to the headquarters of KION North America, primarily looks after children and families suffering physical violence or sexual abuse. Every year, KION provides a large number of backpacks, notebooks and other school supplies so that all students can enjoy a similar start to the beginning of the school year irrespective of their social background. If needed, KION also provides support throughout the school year – and with donations, it even enables the children to have Christmas presents.

2017 marked the first year in which KION North America (part of KION Americas) took part in the annual Day of Caring, the largest regional community service day. 133 companies with over 5,500 volunteer helpers participated on the day, and together completed 277 projects within 28,249 working hours. Among the tasks, they took care of repairs and dealt with clearing, renovation and gardening tasks. The social project aims to encourage community service. As part of this project, KION employees volunteered their time and effort to a school with over 1,000 grade 6 to 8 students in the specific KION location’s neighbourhood.

It has already been several years since OM Voltas (part of KION APAC) started a forklift production line designed specifically for women. It makes it as easy as possible for them to handle heavy equipment and in doing so makes the logistics industry more appealing to women. The production line has been well received, and the additional opportunities that are already on offer for young women in the Indian logistics industry are a sign of the initiative’s success.

In 2017 the KION Group sponsored the exhibition ‘Germany 8’ in Beijing – the most comprehensive show of contemporary German art abroad to date, with 320 works by 55 artists, including Jörg Immendorff and Martin Kippenberger. 750,000 art enthusiasts visited the exhibition, which was organised by the Bonn Foundation for Arts and Culture and the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). Selected customers of Linde China (part of KION APAC) were invited to the show’s opening, where they gained a comprehensive impression and a good overview of the richly diverse art scene of Linde’s homeland on the basis of the artworks on display. Through this involvement, the KION Group is promoting intercultural exchange between Germany and China, and strengthening the shared partnership beyond business interests.

At all of its locations, Dematic focuses its social activities on supporting regional charities. By doing so, the company ensures that the beneficiaries benefit from the money raised through fund-raising collections quickly and directly for the most important social purposes. The company also organises events to foster exchange between employees and local residents to support how it is seen and accepted at the particular location, and to present itself as a good neighbour. In June 2017 Dematic employees supported the Fundraising Midnight Walk in Bodicote (UK); this event alone raised at least £45,000, all of which went to people with life-shortening illnesses.

In 2017 KION Latin America (part of KION Americas) placed a strong emphasis on supporting children’s charities as part of its social engagement. In particular, its efforts centred on ABID, a non-profit charity that works with psychosocially disturbed children and adolescents. Other beneficiaries included well-known institutions such as House of Fraternity and Institution Manaem, which was provided with warm winter clothing, among other things, for its social work. KION Latin America’s social engagement on behalf of ABID spanned Easter to Christmas, practically the entire year. At Easter, KION Latin America employees donated chocolates to the children, toys were given at a special Children’s Day, and at Christmas KION Latin America sponsored the Adopt a Child for Christmas initiative to ensure that children from socially disadvantaged families also got to enjoy gifts at Christmas. In addition, KION was actively involved in Junina’s Party to collect monetary donations for ABID.