Foreword

Social engagement is in our DNA. For us, it goes without saying that we must take care of our environment, the people around us, and the planet. After all, the environment gives us so much in return! Just consider the amazing nature in A.Vogel’s garden, the vital powerhouse behind all our self-care products. Everything we do in the A.Vogel garden is done with a passion for nature and your health. That is precisely why we grow plants using ecological methods in the production gardens (EKO seal of approval), without any artificial fertilisers or chemical pesticides. At A.Vogel, we understand that our continued existence depends on ensuring there is a balance between man, nature and environmental well-being.

And the best thing? Everyone can enjoy this natural world. Everyone is welcome to wander around the A.Vogel garden to see, feel and taste nature. We are also incredibly proud of our new visitor centre, which was opened in November 2022. In this new, interactive visitor centre, we stimulate your senses and offer a unique insight into our natural health approach and the A.Vogel products. We are delighted to be able to inspire even more people and allow them to experience the power of nature.

The opening of our visitor centre was not the only feature of 2022. This report elaborates on many other high points, including our Fit Programme, CSR Thumbs and a huge (planted) A.Vogel forest. Unfortunately, COVID was also a focus area in 2022 and it made us realise, more than ever, how important it is to look out for one another, to stay (mentally) fit, and to enjoy the natural world together.

Would you like to experience nature with us? Come and visit our gardens! You are welcome to visit our new visitor centre from May 2023. See you soon!

 16% reduction in our CO₂ footprint

7715 questions answered

What a milestone! On 4 November 2022, our visitor centre was officially opened. In the new, interactive, sustainable visitor centre, we stimulate your senses and offer a unique insight into our natural health approach and the A.Vogel products. The visitor centre blends seamlessly into the landscape and will soon function as the gateway to the A.Vogel gardens in ‘t Harde. In the gardens, we harvest around 50,000 kilograms of beneficial plants. But what is the story behind them? How do we grow them? How do we extract the active ingredients? And how do we process the ingredients into A.Vogel products? You can see and experience this process via photos, a film, an audio tour, a tasting session and various interactive elements in the A.Vogel Visitor Centre.

The latest developments have been applied in this visitor centre so it can operate on a carbon-neutral basis. Find out how sustainable the visitor centre is here.

A.Vogel is a proud partner of Trees for All and to compensate for our CO2 output, the digging began in February 2022. Our goal, to create A.Vogel’s very own forest on the Oostermaet estate, not far from Deventer, became a reality! The forest captures CO2, enhances the local biodiversity and improves the living environment. A total of 25,050 trees were planted, 2,500 of which were from A.Vogel.

A varied forest, like the one we planted in Overijssel, is much more resilient to climate change than a forest where just one type of tree is grown. A varied forest, for example, can cope effectively with one type of tree dying out as the other varieties will continue to form a forest. In the coming years, the trees in Overijssel will develop into a small forest. Over time, they will develop into a fully-fledged forest where all sorts of trees, plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms will coexist.

Green Friday Forest

As well as our own forest, we are also supporting the Green Friday Forest; we are working with Trees for All and other businesses to take a stand against Black Friday. Our green alternative was publicised online, via the media and on the high streets. Thanks to its success, Trees for All has been able to plant at least 20,553 in the Green Friday Forest in Noord-Brabant, located on former agricultural land. Thus, we can connect existing trees with one another at this location, and bring nature back to life.

You will find the A.Vogel gardens, with numerous beneficial herbs and plants, tucked away in the Veluwe forests of Landgoed Zwaluwenburg. This is the go-to location for a fun, healthy day out in the heart of nature. Let your senses come to life!

The A.Vogel garden is home to 14 hectares of beneficial plants and herbs which, although beautiful to look at, are primarily grown for your health. For as long as they grow in the garden, they take up and generate all sorts of active ingredients that are good for your health. We then extract these and process them into A.Vogel products, including our well-known Echinaforce, for example. The A.Vogel gardens enable you to take good care of yourself, with natural products. After all, the best that nature has to offer is you!

We choose freshness
The fresher the plants, the more active the ingredients and we do all we can to preserve these. That is why we harvest our plants when the active ingredients are at their best and then process them quickly; often within two hours. If we leave the plants for too long after harvest or they dry out, the level of active ingredients reduces. That’s why we choose freshness.

The natural world is the source and this is endorsed by the golden Green Key certificate that we receive every year. We are currently in the top-3 and, with our new visitor centre, we soon hope to take the top spot. Green Key is the biggest sustainability quality mark for the tourism and recreational branch in the Netherlands.

CO2- footprint A.Vogel Netherlands and Belgium 2013-2022

CO₂– footprint A.Vogel 2022

CO₂ emissions in the chain

Our raw materials and transport

Waste

43,640 kg of waste is recycled, of which 38,420 kg is paper and cardboard, and 5,220 kg is plastic film. In total, 37,060 kg of waste was incinerated, with reclamation.

Incineration with reclamation

If you wish to take genuine steps to make the world a more beautiful place, you are better off working together. That’s why we work with a range of other organisations.

• We work with Stichting Wiel to provide opportunities to people who may be slightly disadvantaged.
• With Stichting Geldersch Landschap en Kasteelen, we provide information on the life of bees and hand out ’treasure hunt’ cards for flora and fauna during the national nature working day.

We are also happy to support a healthy labour market. We focus on groups such as students, immigrants and people with disabilities who may face barriers to employment. Every year, we supervise several work placement students as we believe it is important to offer young people valuable opportunities within our amazing company. We also regularly take on holiday workers from the local General Secondary School (Havo). They have a great deal of theoretical expertise, and we like to complement this with our practical experience. This brings the youngsters closer to nature by learning about a plant’s growing process, for example. Both parties always look back on their days in the gardens with huge enthusiasm.

The residents of the Westbroek care centre have provided excellent support in our gardens too, working on various tasks, including cutting the grass, pruning and harvesting.

At A.Vogel, we often say that CSR is in our DNA. For us, it almost goes without saying that we must take care of our environment. As a company we depend on our environment; just consider the natural resources that we need for our products. With our CSR Thumbs, A.Vogel is also happy to support wider society. Since 2022, employees have been able to nominate charities or good causes that they believe deserve an extra €150. The CSR team then selects 2 of these organisations and gives a ‘thumbs up’ to a couple of fantastic initiatives. In 2022, we awarded a total of 8 CSR Thumbs to organisations including Stichting Opkikker, Stichting Wensambulance and Stichting Jelte.

Our people

A.Vogel does all it can to keep its employees motivated and healthy. As long as it is appropriate to the role, A.Vogel employees can choose to work at home and this impacts on both travelling time and CO2 emissions. We also provide free fruit and milk every day and each employee is given Echinaforce for their own use, in order to maintain their resilience through the colder months of the year. Having fun together also generates energy.

Exercise is vital for maintaining your health and the employees at A.Vogel are actively encouraged to participate in sports. They are also offered running and cycling clothing to support their efforts and A.Vogel will partially reimburse the costs of a sporting subscription.

We are also extremely proud of the A.Vogel cyclists: 12 colleagues who travelled to the Vosges mountains and then cycled over 2,000 kilometres!

We are proud and delighted to look back at the steps we have taken over the past year with respect to CSR and examine how we can develop further by reducing gas and electricity consumption within our organisation, for example. These actions will deliver great savings and provide a departure point for the ongoing reduction of our emissions in the coming year. In 2023, we will also focus on setting more concrete goals for our CSR efforts. What would we like to achieve next year in relation to specific topics, and how will we do so? But we will tell you more about that next year…

Gisella van Oene – Product Manager

Dick Wolf – Production Operator

Ellen Junte – Executive Secretary

Frida Miedema – MRA staff

Frederieke de Vries – Communications

Wilfred Schenk – Head of the Gardens

Ernst-Jan Ruessink –  Operations Manager

Edwin Stoel – General Manager

Accountability

information about the annual social report

Report frequency

The intention is to present a report annually.

Contact

Please contact Karin Peters, A.Vogel’s Head of Brand and Customer Contact with any questions about this report.