Sustainability Report

Stay Healthy initiatives

• Regular get-fit and sports events initiatives such as table tennis, badminton contests and continuously strive to keep our staff motivated in the sports season with initiatives around football, running, etc. Each year we organize our Bike2Work breakfast which is not only good for our health but contributes to a better environment and fewer traffic jams, saving CO2 emissions.
• Fit@Ahlers – An external fit coach supported the employees that joined the program with actions such as determining their current health and fitness level, and advising them on training and their diet to improve overall health. The coach also looked into the ergonomic setup of desks and workstations. 
• With our daily office fruit delivery, we create opportunities for employees to make more healthy lifestyle choices. 

Increasing support for mental health

• Through the employee well-being program, Ahlers Logistics offers psychological support (hotline) through our health insurance program to support any mental health issues our employees might be experiencing.
• Our HR supporting staff has an open-door policy and advocates for reducing the stigma associated with mental health issues or concerns.

COVID and Flue protection

• We accelerated the COVID vaccination process for our employees. Ahlers Logistics agreed with a local hospital providing opportunity windows to schedule COVID vaccinations for our employees. People were very happy to get in earlier than expected, after a survey, we divided people into groups, providing transport to the hospital.
• We promote free-onsite flu vaccinations at several of our locations as well as on-site COVID testing possibilities.
• Working from home. The flexibility for employees to work from home or remotely allows our people to remain agile, and productive whilst keeping a healthy work-life balance environment.

Creating clear workplace guidelines for health and safety

• Our environmental health and safety policy outlines the commitments we take as a company. We are committed to complying with all applicable EHS laws, regulations, and permits as well as developing and implementing high standards. 
• On a regular basis, we perform a risk analysis of environmental aspects in all of our operations and implement actions to eliminate or mitigate these risks for the preservation of our employee’s health, prevention of injuries, and environmental protection.

Grow existing talent

• At Ahlers Logistics, when possible, we give people a chance by promoting them to positions they need to grow into. By creating internal opportunities and continuous education, we develop in-house talent instead of finding new external talent. We help to retain talent by offering them a challenging environment that enables them to grow and advance their career.

Lifelong learning opportunities

• Business-specific learning programs, such as the IT Security awareness campaign, are offered to our employees. Self-paced microlearning is offered and tracked in our HR e-learning platform. Collaborating with the industry sector, allows people to benefit from the latest industry-related trends and training. 
• In 2022, we continued to deliver professional skills and managerial competencies training. Several webinars were organized such as insights on our project management office. We also launched a pilot project to enhance linguistic skills with the Go Fluent online language program.

Logistics Academy

• We kickstarted a brand-new logistics academy program including 4 modules in which our warehouse managers guide first-line leaders on key business priorities, providing them with best practices. Ten managers and shift team leaders from different warehouse locations took part in a tailored training program covering topics from individual goal setting and operational safety skills to team management and leadership. Read more here

Induction program – Insights training

• Several times a year, we offer new hires quality education across our business support functions and commercial business units sharing best practices, to ensure the successful onboarding of our employees.
• In 2022 we conducted induction program sessions for newcomers in all locations, in which the different business units, operations, and support business functions presented a holistic picture of business processes, projects, strategies, and goals. We also ran several insights training sessions for newcomers and teams offering a broad portfolio of training solutions.

Manager Talks

• We launched a new format where any director, manager, team lead, and expert meet with our internal audience to share some good practices, explain complex rules or new regulations, and touch on specific professional areas. In 2022 we delivered the first sessions and plan more sessions in 2023.

IT training for the non-tech audience

• In 2022, our data analytics team organized training sessions for employees using Power BI analytics in their everyday lives. The participants learned how to use Power BI in a more simple and effective way.

Customer Intimacy

• As part of our CODE strategy, our employees followed a series of 11 short videos focusing on customer intimacy. Close customer relationships are key to success and help our internal audience how Ahlers Logistics addresses its customer’s needs.

Our culture and values – The Ahlers Way

• The Ahlers way brochure describes the cornerstone of our values and promotes entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation throughout the organization. The company we are building is fueled by a growth mindset in an organization that respects the Ahlers’ traditional values.

Work-Life Balance and Productivity

• Providing flexible work hours and working-from-home options allows our employees to combine work, family, and personal life more easily.
• We work in an organization with self-regulating principles and teams where people can take decisions independently.

Creating potential for growth

• Promoting within Ahlers Logistics helps keep productivity high. We have a high rate of internal promotions and several employees that started after school and advanced their careers. A great example today is our Business Unit Director Trade Facilitation who started at Ahlers Logistics coming from the university. Each year we have annual performance reviews for all employees.

Diversity and inclusion

• At Ahlers Logistics, we promote employee inclusion from different backgrounds in our organizational structure. We are proud to have a good balance of women in leadership positions.

Compensation and Benefits

• The salaries offered are benchmarked against market and industry standards. To support this, we run our employee survey and perform benchmark studies, initiating extra benefits applicable to the countries we operate in. We care about our employees’ career and professional development and support this with our performance, reward, and development process in place.

Safety comes first

• Our safety experts provide training in handling dangerous goods. They are trained in a dedicated training center, receive special certificates for loading and unloading operations, and require recurrent mandatory training every 3 years.
• With our EHS management system, we identify opportunities for continuous improvement. In 2022 we published our environmental health and safety policy outlining the commitments we take as a company.

Office Environment

• Our offices are designed for future growth and offers a contemporary workspace and modernly equipped meeting rooms.  In some of our locations we also have now a kid’s corner for when employees come to the office and have no babysit for that day. 

• The new workspace comes with plenty of excitement and flexibility. Open spaces will allow our employees to get together and play with new ideas, whereas more intimate spaces will allow them to be uninterrupted, concentrate and drive innovation, which is at the core of the Ahlers Logistics' strategy.

Warehousing

• In December 2022 we opened a new warehouse in CIS. In all of our warehouses, we provide protective clothing, which is adjusted to the season, including hard hats, vests, and masks for our warehouse workers.
• We did the renovation of toilets and showers in our facilities and we provide a canteen where warehouse staff can have free lunches. Additional accident insurance is also provided for all warehouse and warehouse operations-related employees.

Ahlers onsite logistics: an alternative for outsourcing specialized staff

• Outsourcing means many workers are sourced from specialized contractors rather than being employed directly. With Ahlers Onsite Logistics, we take care of our customer’s warehousing needs, either onsite in their factory, our facilities, or in carefully chosen strategic locations.
• Ahlers Logistics has a flexible pool of people, which it can leverage across our different logistics operations. This helps to drive a perfect balance between own and agency staff.

Paper containers for recycling

• Our Responsible Consumption and Production team organized the collection of paper for recycling. The Technical Service collects paper from the containers on a bi-weekly basis. Collecting waste paper is not only environmentally friendly but also beneficial. Paper and cardboard are not only removed from our warehouses, but also from offices.

Old clothing recycling

• Each year we collect several containers of old clothing – some of it will be sold to support charity and some recycled to become new clothes. In 2022, we installed a new container for collecting clothing to raise awareness for people to help the cause. 

Reduce consumption of plastic

• To reduce the consumption of plastics we stopped purchasing bottled water in our offices. We now provide drinking water from purifiers, located in all buildings, using ceramic mugs provided to our workforce. All purifiers have 4 filters inside, to purify the water from bacteria and viruses.

Battery collection

• In several of our locations, we collect batteries during the year and send them off for recycling. Every employee can put their used batteries into special containers. When batteries are processed the following fractions will have a new life and can be used again: metal scrap, copper powder, manganese dioxide, and zinc dust.
• Over the past few years, we have gathered more than 100 kg of batteries in one of our offices, showcasing our commitment to responsible waste management.

Stretch film recycling

• We continue to recycle stretch film in designated bins placed in our warehouses and partner with local recycling facilities, which helps to reduce our environmental impact and save money on disposal costs. 

Cleanup week

• Every year, we support the annual world clean-up campaign. In all of our locations present, we take time to clean our countries of any dirt which begins with individual actions for collective clean communities. The aim is not only to have cleaner cities, parks, beaches, and forests, but to also move towards better waste management, and raise awareness both locally and globally of the global waste problem.

Plastic-free month

• Our team participated in the May Plastic Free initiative for Flanders, Belgium; so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful grammatical cleaner beautiful is not correct communities. We also provided employees with a drinking bottle and launched a program for street volunteers who regularly pick up plastic waste from the streets.

Modal shift implementation

• We work with our customers to implement modal shift initiatives, changing transportation modes from one mode to another. Examples can be from truck to barge or moving all goods by rail.

CO2 calculation tool

• At Ahlers Logistics, we have developed our CO2 calculator which helps to estimate carbon dioxide emissions, which are a key contributor to climate change.