From September 18 to October 8, Coface is marking the European Sustainable Development Week by organizing internal webinars for its employees. In line with the event’s purpose, the Group aims to raise awareness about sustainable practices and remind participants of the environmental and social issues we are facing today.

The first webinar begins with a live quiz, engaging employees in exploring various aspects of climate change. After this interactive session, a presentation on greenwashing will help employees recognize misleading practices and learn about deceptive marketing tactics related to sustainability.

The second webinar will be presented by Arnaud Marquis, Director of Sustainable Development and Innovation at Tarkett, a leading French multinational company. Marquis will discuss Tarkett’s journey towards a low-carbon footprint and the steps it has taken to promote decarbonization among its suppliers.

Through these internal webinars, Coface aims to deepen employees’ knowledge of sustainable development and encourage them to embrace more sustainable practices in both their professional and personal lives.

For more information about Coface’s approach to corporate social responsibility, visit: Coface CSR Strategy.

The President of the Republic of Hungary Tamás Sulyok awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit to Mr. Attila Chikán Jr., President and CEO of ALTEO Plc. and President of the BCSDH. The Order of Merit was presented on August 15 by Minister of Energy Csaba Lantos in the Pesti Vigadó.

The prestigious state award recognizes the exemplary work of Attila Chikán Jr. in the field of green energy transition, as well as his commitment to society and the environment, and his openness to innovation. When receiving the award, Attila Chikán Jr. said: “The award primarily recognizes the commitment to sustainability that plays a central role in all aspects of the operations of ALTEO and BCSDH and is the result of the efforts of excellent teams in both organizations. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues for their high-quality professional work.”

ALTEO has commissioned a solar farm in the outskirts of Tereske which started its trial operation in August. The facility, that was built with ALTEO’s own investment and construction in just three quarters of a year, has an output of nearly 20MWAC, doubling the solar power plant capacity of ALTEO, a company listed in the premium category of the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE).

ALTEO’s new solar power plant will be capable of generating 31 GWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of more than 10,000 households. The company acquired EDELYN SOLAR Ltd, which owned the project to develop the solar power plant, back in 2022. ALTEO completed the project in the village of Tereske in Nógrád County, in the space of nine months, with its own investment and construction exceeding EUR 17 million.

The importance of the investment is demonstrated by the fact that this development means a twofold increase of ALTEO’s own solar power plant portfolio which will significantly increase the performance of the company’s renewable energy generation business. Even more significant is the integration of the Tereske solar power plant into ALTEO’s Renewable Regulation Centre. This will enable the use of weather-dependent solar power in the provision of resilience services to the national electricity grid.

The Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) has published its 2023 Sustainability Report: for the second time this year, following last year, the BSE has prepared a voluntary report that provides a comprehensive picture of the company’s sustainability efforts. The publication also details the environmental, social and governance (ESG) achievements of the past year, underlining BSE’s commitment to sustainability.

The main objective of the Sustainability Report is to provide investors and the general public with information on the BSE’s activities in the field of sustainability. The report details the Exchange’s sustainability strategy for 2023-2025 and the initiatives it has taken during the year to implement this strategy. The BSE is implementing its strategy with a twofold objective: on the one hand, the company is striving to establish a high level of ESG principles in its own day-to-day operations, thereby also providing guidance to domestic capital market players, and on the other hand, it is seeking to provide support for issuing companies and the ecosystem around the stock exchange in the area of sustainability.

In order to facilitate a sustainable transition for market participants, In 2023 BSE continued the regulatory support, education programmes and market infrastructure development it launchedin the previous years, which are reported in detail in this report.

Over the past year, the Exchange has sought to provide its views on issues affecting capital markets as a speaker at a number of ESG conferences in the country and in the region, and to improve the skills of domestic listed companies through its sustainability education initiatives. By the end of the year, a dedicated platform on the BSE website was created to present the green issues of the exchange, providing a single point of access to all information on BSE green investment products. In additionthe activities and responsibilities of the Exchange’s Corporate Governance Committee have also been extended, and it now operates as the Sustainability and Corporate Governance Committee.

With its initiatives to reduce the volume of paper used in logistics and the stores, SPAR Hungary is saving more than 37 additional tonnes of paper per year. The company has also launched an internal communication campaign among its employees to raise awareness about cutting paper use.

“SPAR uses a large amount of paper every year in its food production plants, stores, the operation of logistics and the online shop. Reducing the amount of paper used is an important part of our company’s sustainability goals. In the recent years, we have implemented several successful programmes in this area: cleaning logs have been phased out in the shops and refrigerator control sheets are now available as digital data. As a result, 14 tonnes less paper was used in 2023. In the SPAR online shop, we use digital delivery notes, saving around 3 tonnes of paper each year. We have recently also launched new programmes for logistics and stores, which have reduced paper demand by more than 37 tonnes,” said Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

In logistics, SPAR achieved a reduction of around 34.4 tonnes by streamlining the administration of goods receipt and reducing the number of outbound delivery notes. In the retail store network, the company has introduced electronic worksheets and digital service logs for SPAR supermarkets and INTERSPAR hypermarkets. From the last quarter of the previous year, the company converted a number of printed control documents to digital format. Also since last year, the annual HACCP-ISO training material is now only available to the staff in online format. In total, this has reduced the required volume of paper by around 3 tonnes.

SPAR also launched an internal communication campaign within the company. It used quizzes and useful tips to raise awareness of the importance of reducing paper waste, so that as little paper as possible ends up in the recycling bins and lost in desk drawers.