The United Nations Organisation (UNO) recognized Natura with its 2019 UN Global Climate Action Award, the most important climate change award in the world. The initiative analyzed all the work done by the company and recognized Natura as a leading player worldwide in the combat against climate change. The winners were announced this Thursday at the Climate Week event in New York. This is the second time Natura has received a UNO award.

“The award recognizes the course that Natura adopted over a decade ago to become a carbon-neutral company. The recognition has the power to inspire the adoption of measures by other companies so that in the future carbon emissions into the atmosphere will be zero”, says Keyvan Macedo, sustainability manager at Natura.

The winner in the Climate Neutral Now category, Natura’s Carbon Neutral Programme was initiated in 2007 and neutralized all the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the company’s activities. Emissions monitoring ranges from the extraction of raw materials, through production and distribution to product disposal. For the emissions it is still unable to avoid, the company supports 38 carbon neutralization projects.

According to the UN, the projects selected represent practical, scalable and replicable examples that people, governments and companies are adopting to combat climate change. The objective is to inspire new policies and actions aimed at forging a highly resilient, low carbon emission future, as well as to boost the ambitions of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and to drive achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The 2015 Champions of the Earth award was the first recognition Natura received from the UN. The award is a tribute to outstanding individuals and organizations involved in environmental sustainability causes, in categories such as politics, science, business, and civil society.

About the Carbon Neutral Programme

Created in 2007, the Programme’s first target was a 33% reduction in emissions by 2013. After a successful conclusion, the same target was set again, this time for 2020. Since some emissions cannot be avoided, the company supports 38 projects to offset or to neutralize its environmental impacts. These include reforestation measures at the source of the Xingu river and Circular Carbon, the company’s first initiative to pay for offsetting within its own production chain.

The company has offset a total of 3.4 million metric tons of carbon and generated the equivalent of R$ 1.6 billion in environmental, social or community services. More than 7,500 hectares of forestland have been reclaimed or maintained, with some 15,300 families impacted directly and a total of 1,800 jobs generated.

“The main challenge, and one of the most difficult ones, is to continue to find ways to achieve the objective of Natura’s Sustainability Vision which establishes that the company will only have value in 2050 if it is engaged and is generating positive impacts”, Macedo stated. “To do this, we want to bring about a transformation and to add our voice to those of other actors, forming a global chorus. The future is in our hands”, he concludes.