Happy children need green

Protecting the climate is more than just a fashionable phrase for the Simba Dickie Group. The choice of raw materials, the manufacturing process, the quality and the durability of the toys are all predicated on a single guiding principle: sustainability.

Sustainability – there is not another word that is so often heard or read these days, in the most varied contexts and always with a strong emphasis. It expresses a paradigm shift in our society: a lifestyle that is changing consumer behavior.

In the US, and increasingly now in Europe, this new way of living is being summed up in the acronym LOHAS: Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability. The expression was coined by American sociologist Paul Ray and psychologist Ruth Anderson in their 2001 book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing The World. It sets out the results of their research on 100,000 American respondents – the biggest ever survey of changing values in the US for the past 20 years.

The credo: "green living"

Ray and Anderson identify 50 million Americans as "cultural creatives" – a new type of consumer. Their priorities are a more relaxed lifestyle, health and stability. Accordingly they demand health-promoting products and services that make good financial and economic sense.

"Cultural creatives are not impulse buyers: they seek information first. They pioneered the demand for futuristic technology such as solar energy. They take nutrition very seriously": that’s how the authors describe LOHAS people, as a well-educated, critical, but still highly consumption-oriented group. Their credo is "Green Living".

Purchasing criteria are changing

More than one in three of all people in the West are now reckoned to be LOHAS consumers. In Germany four million people regularly buy fair-trade products and organic foods. Sixteen million do so at least occasionally. These are the findings of a study by the "Future Institute" at Kelkheim. Product origins, social responsibility among suppliers and environmentally friendly production processes have become relevant purchasing criteria.Accordingly, German toy manufacturers, who also manufacture within the home market, are in a good position to win over this attractive target group. This is because they already fulfill many sustainability criteria: safe production facilities, ethical responsibility and environmental protection – starting with short delivery journeys. "Made in Germany" has once more become a mark of quality forinformed consumers.

The Simba Dickie Group, with its 4,000 products (not counting the Schuco and Dickie-Tamiya brands) sets itself high standards and takes its responsibilities – to nature and the environment, health and safety at work – extremely seriously in all its factories worldwide. Highly efficient use of raw materials, environmentally friendly production processes, durability and recyclability are taken as a matter of course.

The BIG, Smoby and Eichhorn brands are shining examples. The wooden toys bear the seal of approval of the Forest Stewardship Council, guaranteeing that the raw materials are from sustainable forests. And all cut-offs are processed for use in the furnaces. All paints used on wooden toys are water-based; plastic toys use only materials that are child-friendly, physiologically harmless, environmentally friendly and subject to continual quality control.

All rejected BIG and Smoby toys are recycled. Many individual parts, such as the wheels of BIG Bobby-Cars or the handles of Smoby vehicles, are almost entirely made of recycled material. And these plastic toys are practically indestructible.

Sustainability – a question of ethics

Moral standards are equally high: in 2004 the firm pledged itself to ICTI-CARE, the code of conduct of the International Council of Toys, including social standards, fair working conditions, a safe working environment and environmental protectionat all production and supplier facilities, especially those in China.

All the world’s children have a right to grow up in a stable environment.

What’s more, in 2008 we received BSCI (Business Social Compliance Initiative) certification, involving a code of conduct that is practically identical with the ICTI and one that is becoming increasingly in demand within European trade. It’s a corporate ethic that encompasses familyfriendly working hours, support for charitable projects and a non-exploitative attitude to suppliers. Our employees are committed to core values such as respect, honesty, innovation and quality. "It always begins with small things," says Volkhard Wacker, Senior Controller with responsibility for resource management. Biodegradable waste, wood, film, and hazardous waste including outdated computers, lacquer spray tins and batteries have to be carefully sorted and disposed of.

The firm’s site in Fürth houses enormous presses for cardboard and residual waste; print toner cartridges are on a deposit system. But the decisive factor is not simply sorting and removing waste. "It all has to be painstakingly documented and accounted for," says Volkhard Wacker, who deals with this important job with the support of his senior assistant, industrial business manager Anna Rippel. "Everything we sell is recycled, and I mean everything," continues Wacker.

100 percent recycling

The return system costs the firm €1 million euros per annum. "Nowadays many customers will refuse to place further orders unless we guarantee that it will all be disposed of – and can prove it." And so every single product is licensed: "100 per cent without exception". Every Simba Dickie Group product bears the green dot of Germany’s "Dual System" recycling scheme.

The accounting cost is colossal. Every single toy that passes through the logistics center in Sonneberg is measured, weighed and recorded so as to establish how much waste packaging will have accumulated by the year end. "We’ve never yet had a serious complaint from the auditors," says the Senior Controller. That’s not always the case with firms as big as Simba Dickie, because new rules and obligations are always coming out, such as the 2009 Fifth Amendment to the Packaging Act. "You have to be constantly on the look-out to ensure you don’t miss anything," comments Wacker. And not just in Germany. "In every country where we have a presence, we have a waste disposal system."

New blossoming landscapes

Volkhard Wacker has something to smile about: "Our money really does create new blossoming landscapes." In 2008 the Dual System granted the Group its coveted "climate certificate" for its efforts to take back and re-use licensed packaging: Simba Dickie is now a "tree sponsor" to 50 square meters of trees on the large Naturparadies Grünhaus nature reserve in Brandenburg run by NABU, Germany’s leading nature conservation organization. Thanks to its substantial contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Simba Toys is also involved in a project in the Verden area of Lower Saxony, known as "Baltwald Zwei". And this closes the circle. The Simba Dickie Group wants to make children happy. And happy children need a stable environment.

The recycling experts: Volkhard Wacker, Simba Dickie Group Senior Controller, and his assistant, industrial sales manager Anna Rippel.