Puma Unveils World’s First Continental Football Kit to Support this Global Cause

NAIROBI, KENYA / HERZOGENAURACH, GERMANY (6 January 2010) – PUMA and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) were joined today by the Indomitable Lions –Cameroon’s national football team – with team captain Samuel Eto’o, to announce a strategic partnership to support biodiversity worldwide and specific initiatives in Africa.

The ‘Play for Life’ partnership will support the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity by raising awareness about habitat and species conservation among football fans and the general public during worldwide football events, including the Orange Cup of African Nations in Angola later this month and international friendly games leading up to the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. With 12 African football team sponsorships to its name and a history of innovation with Africa, PUMA is uniquely positioned to help drive this effort with UNEP.

The International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) is a global initiative launched by the United Nations for 2010 to help raise awareness on the importance of biodiversity and to encourage worldwide action to conserve plants and animals and the environments in which they live. The ‘Play for Life’ campaign focuses on Africa, a continent that hosts exceptional biodiversity including two of the five most important wilderness areas on Earth – the Congo Basin, and Miombo-Mopane Woodlands and Savannas of Southern Africa. Nine of the planet’s 35 Biodiversity hotspots, the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth, are also in Africa. To read more about Biodiversity click here Read more

 

 

 

 

 

The Sportlifestyle company PUMA has issued its fifth sustainability report, giving an in-depth and transparent view of PUMAVision, the concept that unites PUMA’s corporate social responsibility activities and initiatives, guiding its work, partnerships and engagement worldwide.  

The 121-page document covers the reporting period 2007/2008 and has exclusively been published online for environmental reasons. It details PUMA’s progress to enhance working and social standards in its supply chain, build capacity at its suppliers’ factories, broaden its range of sustainable products and reduce the company’s environmental footprint through the PUMAVision category puma.safe. It furthermore outlines PUMA’s activities in supporting artists and creative organizations through the category puma.creative and its initiatives to support global peace through puma.peace. 

The full report is available online at: http://safe.puma.com/us/en/  

“Our 2007/2008 PUMAVision Sustainability Report is a testament to the fact that we at PUMA do not simply talk about sustainable development, we take action,” said Jochen Zeitz, Chairman and CEO of PUMA. “We are proud of our successes over the years and of our commitment to sustainability and the highest ethical standards, but realize that when it comes to corporate responsibility, there is and will always be room for improvement. Now, more than ever, we are deepening our commitments and dedicating ourselves to a strategy that sees the ‘whole’ as a sum of its parts—our PUMAVision. As we work towards a safer, more peaceful, and more creative world, we will continue to expand our outreach as corporate global citizens beyond the boundaries of business, not only for the benefit of our stakeholders, but for all.” 

 Highlights of the visually appealing document include:  

• A portrait of the concept PUMAVision  
• A transparent description of PUMA’s response to the challenges it faces in its supply chain operations, capacity building projects and brand collaboration initiatives  
• The expansion of PUMA’s range of sustainable products through Fair Trade footballs and apparel from “Cotton Made in Africa”  
• A detailed account of PUMA’s numerous initiatives to protect the environment, including the progress on reaching targets of a 25% reduction of energy and water consumption as well as waste creation for offices by 2010 and decreasing its carbon footprint  
• An outline of PUMA’s worldwide activities in cooperation with the charity organization “Peace One Day” to raise awareness for global peace  
• An account of its sponsorship of the art exhibition 30 Americans to support the work of 31 African-American artists  
• A recap of PUMA’ numerous projects on the African continent

The report has been certified by TÜV Rheinland, which “is confident that PUMA AG operates a meaningful and adequate system to collect, measure, control and steer their sustainability activities and that the PUMA 2007/2008 Sustainability Report presents information and facts that give a realistic impression on the sustainability performance of the company.”  

The Global Reporting Initiative has reconfirmed an A+ rating for the document.  

 

PUMA’s endeavours to enhance its social and environmental standards are ongoing. The Sportlifestyle company endorses the campaign “Seal the Deal!” led by the United Nations. This campaign aims at strengthening political will and public support for reaching a comprehensive global climate agreement at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 to help prevent global warming and further climate change. As a participant in the Carbon Disclosure Project, PUMA is actively working on reducing its direct and indirect climate gas emissions. 

PUMA is committed to working in ways that contribute to the world by supporting creativity, sustainability and peace, and by staying true to the values of being Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative in decisions made and actions taken. The foundation for our activities is PUMAVision—a concept that guides our work with its three core programs, puma.creative, puma.safe and puma.peace. 

 

To learn more about how PUMA is making a difference see our latest Sustainability Report:

Download PDF (43.3 MB) | View Online

PUMA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program

 

Statement from CEO and Chairman, Jochen Zeitz

 

As a company, if the choice we have is between making the world better or worse, then we believe it is important to do our best to ensure that what we do contributes in a positive way. After all, a better world is better for our business, our stakeholders, and our consumers, not only for today but for tomorrow, too.

For a long time now, PUMA has been engaged in the type of environmental and social initiatives that come under the heading “Corporate Social Responsibility.” As I reflected on our history of engagement and our successes throughout the years, I came to realize that, despite our company-wide commitment to sustainability and the highest ethical standards, there was still room for improvement. Now more than ever, we at PUMA are committed to a strategy that sees the “whole” as a sum of its parts. Based on this tenet, as we move towards a safer, more peaceful, and more creative future, our social engagement—what I call “corporate social opportunity”—will strive to extend beyond the boundaries of business, not only for our stakeholders, but for all of us.

With this in mind, we have redefined PUMA’s core corporate values, identifying those principles that will act as a compass to guide us along our roadmap. These principles are called the 4Keys and come from the heart of PUMAVision—Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative. We have also selected core categories through which we will strategically focus our energy and resources in the future. What we aspire to is a PUMA community defined by these shared principles. fueled by the momentum and energy of our individual and collective passions, and deeply engaged in the world. In essence, what we strive towards is to stay true to PUMAVision—our vision of a better world that will guide our work, our partnerships and our engagements worldwide. Through PUMAVision, our actions, decisions, practices, and processes will be guided by the 4Keys principles of being Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative, translating what we believe in, into meaningful connections with each other and the world around us. As real and practical expressions of PUMAVision, we are also giving a special focus to three core categories that are inspired by our vision of world that is safer, more peaceful and more creative. Through the programs of puma.safe (focusing on environmental and social issues), puma.peace (supporting global peace), and puma.creative (supporting artists and creative organizations), PUMA is bringing together all of our long-standing work in creativity, on environmental issues and on decent work in decent workplaces. Through PUMAVision, we will continue to drive our business towards cleaner, greener, safer and more sustainable systems and practices.

- Jochen Zeitz, CEO and Chairman of PUMA