Reaching a more sustainable future can only be done through a collective effort with all stakeholders. TECHNAL acknowledge the importance of working altogether with customers, competitors, suppliers, business partners, NGOs, authorities and local communities. Our approach to stakeholder dialogue considers the OECD Due Diligence guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. We are committed to interacting with all our stakeholders in an ethical and transparent manner. We strive to demonstrate integrity in everything we do through: diversity and inclusion; dialogue with local communities; dialogue with associations, NGOs and other institutional stakeholders. For instance we work with suppliers sharing common values who also want to move towards sustainability by being transparent and agreeing to our Code of Conduct. We continuously implement new ways of sustainability screening to ensure sustainable behaviours according to applicable laws and international regulation. Finally, we work with our customers networks to benchmark the best practices and impulse a more sustainable market in the long run.
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A positive impact on local communities is also crucial when it comes to being truly sustainable. And together you always achieve more when you have the right partners by your side who share the same values. That’s why TECHNAL has decided to cooperate with the Non-Governmental Organisation WEbuilding, an international group of architects. Hand in hand, we want to support and ensure sustainable access to education in areas where children need it the most.
WEbuilding is a non-profit organization founded in 2015 by an international group of architects and powered by committed and highly-qualified volunteers.
WEbuilding aims to support development projects in the Global South by applying a sustainable approach to construction and project planning. Together with experienced local NGOs, they strive to positively impact the quality of life in these under-resourced communities and to show that a more environmentally friendly architecture approach can have a far-reaching positive effect. WEbuilding supports with interdisciplinary knowledge, an agile network, reliable partners and many years of experience in the construction industry. This results in individual architectural solutions that benefit the individual, the local community and society as a whole.
Access to education is an important key to a functioning society.
WEbuilding’s projects contribute significantly to this – and offer people very concrete benefits:
Since TECHNAL recognizes the values and ambitions of WEbuilding, we have signed a 3 years agreement with WEbuilding in order to cooperate on many projects and in different way.
The latest projects of WEbuilding, which were focused on the provision of sustainable education facilities for children in need in Africa and Latin America.
At TECHNAL, during a three-month long internal challenge, our employees have run, walked, cycled to reach the goal to contribute a donation of 20.000€. By covering the distance of a trip to the moon and back, their efforts and commitment will enable WEbuilding to build a classroom for a school in Haiti as part of our partnership.
The project in Haiti is the construction of a school for the children in Grand’Anse department, which is prone to natural disasters. Hurricanes, earthquakes and floods are major threats to its population (UNDP 2015; DPC 2016). Disasters have devastated it in the past. Around 44% of hurricanes that visited Haiti hit Grand’Anse department second to Sud department (at 59%). Grand’Anse has other concerns that pertain to environmental hazards, deforestation and epidemics, including cholera, HIV/ADIS and tuberculosis (Cordaid 2013, Government 2010).
The children living in Ranja Valley do not have the chance to go to school because there's no school where they live. In order to attend school, they have to cross a river which puts their lives in danger every day, mainly when the river is flooding. WEbuilding plans to build a primary school with six classrooms and toilet units. Each classroom will accommodate 30 pupils. This represents, over ten years, 450 children benefitting from the school. The approximate budget of the project is 75.000€. TECHNAL’s contribution will help to build an entire classroom for 30 children. The construction will start in spring 2022 and should end in autumn 2022.
But TECHNAL wants to go beyond... In addition to participating in the Haiti project, TECHNAL will support WEbuilding in other future projects. These projects do not only consist of building schools but also of putting partners, clients and suppliers in touch with WEbuilding. Therefore, we warmly welcomed WEbuilding at our NEXT studio in Frankfurt. Partnering with WEbuilding and gathering between all employees to go towards a more sustainable future showed how collaboration can lead to greater things. Reaching high-scale impacts on society and on our future can only be done with high-scale mobilization. Our sustainability journey can only be done by working together with employees, suppliers, customers, local organizations and NGOs towards a better society. Partnering is the only way to challenge our market, our neighbors, our governments to build differently, more responsibly – to change the brief and build beyond tomorrow.
We believe that to be truly sustainable, we must look to a world beyond four walls and work to make it a reality – starting today. That´s why we go beyond world-class low-carbon materials, to run every part of our business as sustainably as possible.