To interpret the needs of its members and ensure they play a fundamental role, to improve their skills and professional capabilities within a framework of development and enhanced social responsibility, to provide employees with close support and prospects. This, then is the mission of Sacmi, which, since 1919 has played an active role in the community of Imola, carrying its values and skills around the globe. Moreover, in 2005, with goods and services purchased from suppliers in Emilia-Romagna totalling over 300 million Euros (+22.8%), Sacmi’s role in the local economy is vital. In this third Social Audit, concerning 2005, the cooperative also published a Code of Ethics, binding for all companies in the Group. Full observance of the law, corporate management and accounting practices that ensure integrity of capital stock assets, maximum transparency in the use of financial assets, observance of free trade regulations and clear-cut relations with public administration: these, then, are the pillars of the Code of Ethics. Moreover, the code provides strong employee protection rights - no small thing in this day and age and an aspect considered essential to the Group’s success.
All the indicators of Added Value (i.e. the difference between revenues and external costs of the enterprise) are encouragingly positive. Revenues from traditional production areas, in fact, jumped from 487 million Euros in 2003 to 621 in 2004 and 665 in 2005. That’s an increase of 36.5%. Total output reached 671 million Euros, while net added value (i.e. that which emerges after taking into account adjustments, provisions and other charges) came to approximately 114.5 million Euros: that’s a growth rate of 2.6% with respect to 2004. Added Value is essentially the link between the financial audit and the social audit; the added value generated by Sacmi in 2005, equal to about 129 million Euros, was allocated among the various stakeholders as follows: 52.6% to personnel, 14 to public Administration. The company itself was assigned 21.1% of resources, 2.7% to financed borrowed capital; then came the local community and the cooperative movement, each being assigned 0.7%, or 861,815 euro. In 2005 over half of the nearly one thousand employees were given a total of 16,900 training hours. Over 100,000 Euros was invested in workplace safety, the outcome of which was a more than 50% reduction in the number - and seriousness - of accidents.
Sacmi once again demonstrated its international nature, with 90% of output being accounted for by exports (32 in the West, 58 in developing nations). The Group guarantees customers, 46% of whom can be defined as “large-scale customers”, certified products and service of outstanding quality, after-sales assistance included. Market shares accounted for by Italy have steadily fallen as Sacmi has grown - and to achieve that growth Sacmi has invested considerable resources, with patents now totalling 1,312. This increased productivity has inevitably augmented the amount of waste to be disposed of. Yet a revision of waste disposal policies, which now includes its separation and re-sale or recycling/re-use, has actually seen waste disposal costs halved over the same period.