• What was the sustainability progress of Koba / D1 in
2017?
• 2017 was a very important year for KOBA, for D 1, in
terms of sustainability, because even though in the
company, any matter associated with sustainability is
already part of our culture, of our philosophy, almost
of our DNA, we didn’t have a structured sustainability
model, something that is documented, and that was one
of the great challenges; I believe this was also one
of the great achievements of this 2017. In order to
work on this sustainability model, we focus on four
major aspects, which we reached after interviews with
the stakeholders, after understanding what the best
practices are in this regard, and very much within the
framework of the sustainability model of Valorem, four
main aspects arose: first, the leadership and good
governance; second, the welfare and development of the
staff; third, this one focuses on the environment, the
environmental protection; and four, also very
important, responsible management of stakeholders.
With regard to leadership and good governance, we
believe that we have a disruptive model, an innovative
model, in which we offer our customers very good
quality at very low prices. What we are seeking is to
bring that to all Colombian people. So a great goal of
this year, and to the future, is to continue growing;
at this moment, we have already surpassed 700 stores
and our goal is to continue in that direction, in that
respect. We have a philosophy of continuous
improvement that goes hand in hand with this idea of
leadership. In the second aspect of welfare of the
development of our staff, of our people, we seek
equality, we seek to empower people, we seek their
growth, that they feel proud, very committed to and
happy to be in KOBA; and we have focused on that very
much from the very beginning and we continue working
on this. At his moment, we have overcome, we are
almost close to 8,000 employees, we have low turnover
rates, we believe that, in this respect, continue
working on that is also very important. With regard to
the environment, our objective is always to minimize
as much as we can the way we can affect the
environment and have sought, from the very beginning
also, that consumers, our customers, use reusable
bags, and have tried to reduce as much as we can the
use of plastic bags and also be an important part in
terms of recycling; this year, as a monthly average,
we delivered more than 400 tons of cardboard to
certified companies for recycling purposes;
furthermore, we work on recycling plastic, we are
working on some ideas for batteries and also on other
projects. Regarding the last point, which relates to
the responsible management with third parties and
stakeholders, again, we try to give our customers
products of very high quality at very low prices, and
try to listen to their opinion, we’re always ready not
only to their suggestions, but also to their
complaints, so that we can have a continuous
improvement process, and other interested third
parties that are very relevant here are our suppliers,
in general, we work primarily with local companies and
have win-win relationships, the idea is to grow with
them and this, I believe, is allowing to promote the
national economy and the employment generation. Then,
it is an incredible year, and we hope that the future
will be even better.
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