At Alki, our goal is to create a healthy and fulfilling work environment that fuels inspiration and productivity. This consists in ensuring health and well-being in the workplace of all colleagues, with regard to both working conditions and social relations:

• Projects to improve working conditions: Optimising the extraction of wood dust; Optimising the extraction of wood dust; Reviewing collective and personal protective equipment, and its effectiveness, etc.
• A training plan for employees to increase their skills and employability, 10 hours training per annum per cooperative member
• The company’s cooperative status : 100% employees are or are destined to be members
• Continuous social dialogue within the cooperative through various bodies: works council, general meetings, board of directors, etc.
• Democratic management of the cooperative: one person = one vote
• A schedule of unifying events within the cooperative spread throughout the year;
• Benefits package and services for cooperative members.

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. At Alki, we are fully aware of the importance of energy resources and our environment:

• Year after year, we pay very particular attention to reducing our energy consumption, which reduced by over 9% between 2019 and 2022.
• We rely on renewable energy. Electricity in our workshop has come from renewable sources since the end of 2019.
• We anticipate that our production workshop will be a zero energy workshop by 2024: no heating, no air conditioning; using 100% renewable energy; reduce artificial lighting by optimising natural light input.

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. At Alki, we give priority to people and long-term solutions. Economic growth is a way of ensuring our longevity:

• In-house, we strive to offer our cooperative members good working conditions and support them in their development: Alki systematically opts for indefinite-term employment contracts; Alki is a teaching company. It prioritises vocational and lifelong learning, which is encouraged through professional interviews. This work ethic permeates through to our choices, our purchases and the relationships we have with our partners.
  
• Proximity is a crucial selection criterion for Alki. Indeed, 80% of our suppliers are situated within a radius of less than 100km, and 100% of our suppliers are situated in Europe.
  
• Permanence of the relationship is an essential asset in our relationships with suppliers. We sign up for the long term with the mindset of working in partnership with our suppliers: Our commitments are reciprocal; Our pool of partners is very stable. Our main suppliers have been Alki’s partners for over 20 years.

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation. At Alki, we continuously strive to promote sustainable and resilient activity, which encourages innovation. In addition to compliance with official, prescribed certification programmes:

• We ensure that materials purchased correspond to the most win-win propositions
• We develop environmentally-friendly projects based on sustainable materials such as recycled and recyclable PET, 80% plant-based bioplastic, PEFC and FSC-certified wood, etc.
• We ensure the longevity of our products through mechanical trials and product repairability
• We have launched a programme for carrying out product life cycle assessments (LCA) in order to identify new eco-design levers,
• We have set up new, innovative and resilient infrastructure by building a zero-energy workshop (see SDG 7),
• We work on the continuous improvement of our manufacturing processes, particularly finishings.

Reduce inequality within and among countries. At Alki, we are particularly attached, through our cooperative status, to the principle of equality, which, among other aspects, is characterised by:

• Internal procedures for equality among employees: job descriptions, individual interviews, etc.
• An RQTH rate of over 10% (official recognition of a person’s status as a disabled worker)
• A target recruitment process: pre-selection interview with all job applicants, panel of interviewers and screening through technical and personality tests
• A watchdog procedure in order to escalate any inequality and CSR issues
• A ratio of 1 to 3 on the salary scale.

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Alki is an economic stakeholder committed to its region. One of its missions is to create local value and wealth in order to foster the economic and cultural life of its region. This is illustrated through:

• Donations to local associations (2022: 10 associations supported, 9 of which being local)
• Support provided for the development of local cultural and social entities
• Support provided to cooperatives in need
• Local promotion of manual trades to young people and people undertaking vocational retraining.

Establish sustainable consumption and production patterns. At Alki, controlling our environmental impact is a pre-requisite for the company’s entire value chain, from the materials used (wood, wool, bioplastic or recycled and recyclable PET) to our production workshop:

• Manufacture of products to order
• Reduction of production waste through the optimisation of our manufacturing process
• Packaging: balance sought between protecting the products and minimising waste.
  

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. At Alki, we consider that demonstrating the utmost respect for our region and resources is the only way forward. Every action is a contribution to the fight against climate change. Alki contributes by:

• Using electricity from renewable sources
• Setting up best in-house practices, especially through eco-friendly actions (lighting, computers, business trips, commuting by bike and car-pooling).

Protect and restore terrestrial ecosystems. At Alki, through our cooperative status, local production and selected materials, we started by building our company based on common sense practices that today are referred to as responsible. This consists in mindfully monitoring the entire value chain for the supply and production of our products:

• Our timber suppliers are PEFC and FSC-certified
• The materials we use are responsible materials: solid wood, bioplastic shell for the Kuskoa Bi chair made from 80% plant-based material, recycled and recyclable PET shell for the Xume chair, etc.
• We have engaged in a process of reducing the weight of our products. For example, the new chair in our Xume Collection weights 20% less.