Borusan Group’s Sustainability Report 2016 has been published. The report built around the “The World is Our Home” theme, included Syrians and Borusan workers coming together to create art products out of wastepaper. Recycling of paper and discovering common words in our languages underlined the importance of both environmental responsibility and the need to form a basis for dialogue.

Borusan, preparing sustainability reports according to the new GRI Reporting Standards since 2009, published its 8th sustainability report this year. Borusan Group’s 2016 Sustainability Report, like last year, is based on the “The World is Our Home” theme. Last year’s report included employees’ individual ecological practices, and this year it brought together the Borusan employees and the Syrians taking refuge in Turkey from the civil war in their country. In the workshop carried out with the contributions of the Support To Life (Humanitarian Relief) Organization, Turkish and Arabic words that express environment, love and common dialogue were picked out of 6500 common words and pressed on the recycled wastepaper, thus being transformed into works of art.

The report included Borusan’s practices to pursue its operations on sustainable grounds and to minimize effects on the environment. Borusan, which allocated a total of 11 million dollars of resources to social projects, achieved 622,000 tons of CO2 emission reductions.

Cultural Bridge

Borusan employees came together with Syrians from different career fields such as graphic designers, communication professionals, pharmacists, linguists and painters and participated in a collective workshop. During the workshop, common words in Turkish and Arabic, such as “hello”, “human”, “conversation”, “love”, “peace”, “sorrow”, “nature”, “laughter” and “worth” were picked and transformed into art by printing on paper with Syrian artists.

Syrian artists Abd Alatif Algimou and Khayyam Zedan, both graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts in Damascus and internationally recognized as the creators of many artworks, guided the participants. These exercises made it clear once more that it is possible to build strong bridges of dialogue over culture and arts.

“Understanding our Syrian neighbors begins with dialogue”

Borusan Holding’s corporate communication director Şule Yücebıyık states “We are operating as Borusan in 10 countries on 3 continents, with more than 8,000 employees. This operation which goes beyond borders is carried out with a management sense that has accountability and is transparent. Respect for humans and the environment is also highly regarded. We offered 1,638 employees a total of 4,023 hours of environmental training. 599 of our employees participated in 3,772 hours of voluntary-based projects.”

Yücebıyık also spoke of the collective work done together with the Syrians. “There are approximately 3 million Syrians in Turkey. Finding the ground for dialogue opens a way to understand our Syrian neighbors, to know and to build a healthy relationship with them. We believe that we can build a sustainable future by knowing each other through arts and our common culture, not over prejudgments.

You can access the Borusan Sustainability Report 2016 via the link.