Responsible Business Management

Current business practices indicate that Responsible Business Management is a key factor that supports competitiveness of companies by providing benefits in the areas such as risk management, cost saving, access to capital, customer relations, human resources management and innovation capacity. TGDF and its members strongly believe that Responsible Business Management will help Turkey achieve its purposes and will ensure smart, sustainable and comprehensive growth in significant fields such as employment, innovation and poverty.

Contributions and Commitments of TGDF

The mission of TGDF, which represents the food and beverage industry in Turkey, is to encourage and provide an environment where all Turkish food and beverage companies of all sizes continue with sustainable growth and meet the needs of the society and the requirements of consumers.

During the fulfillment of its mission, TGDF strives to make contributions to the development of suitable frameworks where the topics such as competitiveness, affordability of high-quality foods, confidence of consumers in food safety and quality, selection of conscious consumers, responsible marketing and environment are handled as a whole and supported with concrete scientific data and efficient communication.

The Turkish food and beverage industry believes that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plays a significant guiding role during the fulfillment of its mission. CSR increases the capacity to manage and minimize negative social and environmental impacts within enterprise and supply chain and create employment opportunities, and also provides benefits for consumers.

In addition, CSR helps to gain long-term confidence of employees, consumers and citizens. It may ensure significant cost saving, capital access and resource management capacity. For TGDF, CSR means conducting works that go beyond our legal obligations for the society and providing the foundation for a business model that promotes innovation and growth in the sector.

During the fulfillment of their missions, TGDF members are determined to proceed on their journey to become successful in terms of the triple bottom line as people, world and profit.  Providing support for and participating in corporate and multi-stakeholder CSR initiatives, global principles and guidelines and integrating these elements with business strategy, daily works and supply chains are part of this journey.

TGDF agrees that internationally-recognized principles and guidelines serve as a major reference for the enterprises looking for an official approach towards the CSR. OECD’s Multinational Enterprises (MNE) Guidelines, the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, 10 Principles of the United Nations Global Compact, ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Guidance Standard and ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy are among such principles and guidelines.

TGDF and its members summarize their vision of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), their desired contributions and relevant guiding principles as follows: “We consider that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should be integrated in all operations. As TGDF, we adopt the ‘‘Human Rights, Occupational Health & Safety, Society, Environment, Consumers and Responsible Business Management’’ principles in the business models of our members, and further increase the awareness of sharing and improving the best practices for both major enterprises and the SMEs.”