Translations Best practice in French version Best practice in English version

BERACA : Preservation of biodiversity and empowerment of local communities

5. Fair Operating Practices

Responsible purchasing

Context

Beraca is a Brazilian company that was created in 1956 in Sao Paolo. The company has seven domestic sites, including one in France and one in the United States. Their distribution network extends to more than 40 countries around the world. Nearly 300 direct employees and 1700 indirect collaborators participate to Beraca’s activity. The company is a supplier of certified organic and natural ingredients from the Amazon rainforest and other regions. It is specialized in the food and beverage, animal nutrition and health, water treatment, and cosmetic industries. The group has integrated some strong CSR politics and values at all levels of its corporate activities.

Objectives

  • Producing innovative and sustainable services and products
  • Ensuring traceability, safety and quality in the manufacturing processes
  • Providing ethic and transparency to clients, suppliers, partners and shareholders
  • Improving wellbeing of the communities affected by the companies’ activity
  • Protecting the biodiversity and water resources

APPROACH

The aim of Beraca is to make appropriate profitability while preserving water and biodiversity as well as improving human development in a balanced manner.

The socio-biodiversity enhancement program is Beraca’s solution in order to create a sustainable economic chain that allows the empowerment of local communities. It is present in 6 states, 50 counties, 160 communities and 7500 families.

The program relies on one essential contribution, which is to provide a source of income to each individual. In this way, there is no need for them to pursue any kind of activity that leads to deforestation. Only then it is possible to make the bridge between the communities and the market. Different partners such as l’Oréal or l’Occitane are part of this program. A specialized team of people is dedicated in helping them setting up the actions o n the spot and insuring that the initial objectives of the stakeholders are well fulfilled. Also, because it can be difficult to comply the needs of the communities with the companies’ ones, Beraca often gets help from NGO’s which act like a third part.

Each year, Beraca holds the BERACOM conference. The third Beracom conference took place in 2012 on December 6 to 8 and was attended by more than 80 professionals. This meeting brings together supplying communities and supplying partners on topics related to biodiversity. The aim is to communicate with stakeholders on topics of improvement such as the need of training the leaders of the communities.

Best Practice spotted in 2014 by the World Forum for a Responsible Economy.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

  •  From 2007 to 2012, Beraca growth in revenue of 66%
  •  Gain of profit in the productivity (energy reduced by 10% per unit produced)
  •  Finep Award for the developing an alternative oxide (chlorine dioxide)
  •  V ranking (Impresa magazine)): ranked 8th for the most sustainable companies in the chemical and petrochemical sector

Benefits

  •  Protecting biodiversity in an area that covers nearly 1.5 million hectare (Ecocert)
  •  Increase of at least 30% in agro extrativist household income
  •  47 million people benefiting from treated quality water
  •  Increase job offer and income for local people
Workforce
300
Turnover
120 millions deuros
Country
Brazil

Contact

Thiego TERADA, Responsable RSE

Mise à jour le 26/05/2016

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.