CSR

Our initiatives to make our world a brighter place

Our mission is to be an exemplary company. Not only in terms of our marketable output but also in terms of how our operations affect our people and stakeholders, the environment and our society. We may not be a multinational just yet but we try to mimic their social initiatives in order to bring positive change to our world.

Our Environment

The future will either be green or not at all.

To us, being green is about proactively planning our actions to reduce our footprint. It is about working ex-ante towards limiting the production of inorganic waste and our usage of natural resources, whether directly or indirectly. We use an ISO 14001 certified environmental management system that is revised regularly to incorporate better practices and technologies.

CLEAN TECH

Thermo-insulated roof and energy-efficient windows to decrease the power consumed for heating our factory in the winter and cooling it in the summer. A biological treatment unit to turn sewage into clean water used to water our plot. Best-in-class, low-consumption lights. LPG-powered heating units to minimize CO2 emissions. Gradual replacement of our old electronic and electrical infrastructure with newer, energy-efficient equipment.

We had always been environmentally conscious but when our main factory was rebuilt from scratch in 2011, we seized the opportunity and equipped it with many great technologies that allowed us to significantly reduce our environmental footprint. And there is still room for improvement.

RESOURCE USAGE

Decreasing the relative usage of natural resources – directly and indirectly – is an ongoing corporate target.

Since our facilities cannot efficiently generate their own energy from renewable sources (such as solar and geothermal) due to their location, we have shifted our focus to decreasing our usage of non-renewable energy sources. In 2015, we managed to decrease the absolute consumption of electricity and petrol in our Avlonas factory by 1.5% and a whopping 45% respectively, compared to the previous year. Petrol usage was partly substituted with LPG (consumption increased by 21,5%) as a cleaner energy source.

In terms of indirect usage, it is our philosophy to reuse and recycle everything that can be reused and recycled. Faulty electronic equipment will be repaired many times before being replaced -even though the latter is usually cheaper- and old equipment is maintained and donated to charitable causes so that it can be reused. Paper products, such as sheets and packaging, are used multiple times internally before being compressed and sent to our recycling partner. Raw material wastage is limited by value-engineering our products, finding alternate uses for leftovers and by working with our suppliers to tailor material dimensions to fit our products. Most-importantly however, we make signs that last longer, thus decreasing the use of additional resources needed to maintain, repair, retrofit or replace them.

Energy-efficient Illumination

Perhaps our most important contribution to the protection of our planet is the ever-increasing use of energy-efficient, mercury-free light sources and luminaires in our end products. Being a company that produces more than 15.000 meters of illuminated signs every year, trust us, we do make an impact!

We use energy-efficient, mercury-free light sources in our end products.

Fluorescent Tube Recycling

The process of rebranding a retail site involves the dismantling and disposal of the old signage. One of the most hazardous materials found in old signs are fluorescent tubes as the mercury from a single tube is enough to pollute 30,000 liters of water beyond the safe drinking level. So, instead of disposing the old signs into landfills, we carefully disassemble them, separate the components (plastics, metals, lamps, paper products) and dispose them individually into recycle bins that are later processed by our recycling partners.

Hazardous and scarce materials are processed and recycled by approved partners

In-house waste treatment

At Kouros we use a lot of paint. Unavoidably we end up with a considerable amount of waste paint and solvents annually that, due to their toxic nature, must be stored as hazardous waste and removed by specialist disposal companies. But instead of taking the easy route, we decided to invest in two solvent purification units whereby contaminated solvents undergo a distillation process that separates pure solvents from contaminants. The clean solvents are totally reusable therefore eliminating any hazards and costs associated with the disposal of toxic substances.

With the use of two specialized units we purify and reuse contaminated solvents

Employer Responsibility

Being a responsible employer is a lot more than honoring our legal and contractual obligations.
It is about caring for the well-being of the people that work with us and about treating them with
fairness and respect.

Factory Health + Safety

Greece may be hot but we don't run a sweatshop. We take pride in the fact that our factory conditions are constantly improving in terms of micro-climate, hygiene and safety. We operate according to the guidelines of our OHSAS 18001-certified H&S System in order to minimize the risk of occupational hazards and ensure that, if a H&S event occurs, we can adequately correct it. The steps taken include personnel training on best practices and procedures, regular equipment inspections and maintenance and the use of PPE by all production and installation personnel. Our H&S system is audited annually and revised according to the latest standards.

Our OHSAS 18001-certified H&S system minimizes the risk of occupational hazards

Improving Working Conditions

Offering good working conditions and keeping our people safe, healthy and engaged is always a priority. Year after year we make our working environment more employee-friendly. We keep our facilities clean and invest in ways to make our office and factory spaces more comfortable and warm.

Keeping our people safe, healthy and engaged is always a priority

Corporate Philanthropy

Our ways of giving back. To the society that hosts us, to the communities that we belong.

More on our social actions in the News Section.

Athletics

We sponsor numerous local athletic initiatives and amateur sports clubs annually through financial donations and non-cash contributions. From donating the athletic equipment to a juniors basketball club in the remote island of Ikaria to supporting students attend an open-sea sailing course in Norway and from sponsoring the annual Andros Regatta to helping the Hellenic Olympic Academy and 45.000 students achieve a Guinness World Record, our support for the athletics is ever increasing.

We sponsor local athletic initiatives via financial and non-cash contributions

Arts + Culture

Many forms of the visual arts are inherently embedded in our profession's DNA. So, whenever possible, we support cultural and artistic initiatives that benefit the public. Our support for the arts and culture spans over several areas and disciplines: assisting artists develop their creations, patronage of an international film festival in the island of Patmos and support for visual arts exhibits in Athens.

We support cultural and artistic initiatives that benefit the public

Community

Being part of a community entails getting involved and contributing to make it better. Our support for local communities is both implicit, for example by prioritizing the recruitment of people from towns or villages close to our facilities, and explicit - such as by making donations to local charities, funding the work of NGO's or volunteering in local projects. Recent examples of our community work include our team effort to clean one of Athens' most important landmarks - the Averoff building - or our donation of hundreds of wayfinding signs to the Andros Routes initiative - a project to revamp more than 100km of ancient hiking routes in the island of Andros.

Being part of a community entails getting involved & contributing to improve it