Corporate Social Responsibility

The balanced pursuit of our short and long-term objectives is a highly significant factor in this regard. As are consideration for people and the environment milieu. To this end, we proactively seek means of preventing our products, packaging, services and logistics from having any unintentional side effects.

AVEX focuses on the following core topics in the context of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR):

• Being a good employer and client: endeavouring to achieve suitable working conditions and social fairness.
• Building management: thermal and sound insulation, lighting and climate control.
• Mobility: encouraging people to work from home, reducing CO₂ emissions, promoting the use of public transport.
• Social commitment: supporting local projects and sponsoring social initiatives.
• Sustainable procurement: packaging and recycling, sustainable document management.

Vision of Social Fairness

The complement of our workforce is highly diverse in terms of gender, sexual persuasion, cultural background and age. And within this context, we also create opportunities for those groups that face difficulties in accessing the labour market. AVEX has already taken initial steps in pursuit of chain responsibility. For instance, we endeavour to attract our own suppliers’ attention to our vision of social fairness. Furthermore, we collaborate solely with like-minded partners. We also focus continually on opportunities for improvement. And last but not least, AVEX cooperates with a local social training company based at our own industrial estate. For example, it carries out the assembly of some of our products, including the easy presenter and team presenter. This offers us the added benefit of minimising the number of transport kilometres involved in the manufacturing process.

Health, Safety and the Environment (HSE)

We have also implemented organisation-wide policy relating to Health, Safety and the Environment. For instance, we have committed to observe various guidelines. We are an ISO27001 certified company. Furthermore, as a member of the Netherlands System Integrators Association (VSI) we have been compliant with the standards applicable in our sector since 2004. Both our firm and individual employees are SCC certified. Moreover, we comply with the HSE checklist for Contractors, and are a member of CSR Netherlands.

Quality Labels and Code of Ethics & Conduct

Our own CSR focus is tested annually. This is done by EcoVadis. which has been awarded a Gold Ecovadis certificate. With this independent CSR analysis from EcoVadis, AVEX belongs to the 8% best rated companies in our sector.

AVEX is also a member of AVIXA, the international trade association of audio-visual and ICT companies. This organisation has a joint Code of Ethics & Conduct, which is published on its website. We endorse this Code of Ethics & Conduct. Our top-30 suppliers are also members of AVIXA and endorse the code.

In addition to certification by Ecovadis for its CSR policy, AVEX also has a FIRA Extended accreditation since 2016. This is done through the digital FIRA platform for CSR. FIRA does this on the basis of verifiable business activities.

Partnerships

AVEX has forged strategic alliances with a range of partners. These partnerships serve our business interests, while they often also contribute to the achievement of our CSR objectives. For example:

Our GPA Regional Business Units enables us to serve our clients worldwide. And we can achieve this without clocking up any unnecessary travel kilometres, which would cause additional environmental burden. Furthermore, cooperation with local partners also boosts local employment opportunities.

We jointly developed the Quarta conferencing concept with Finitouch, one of our alliance partners. This conference table can be equipped with videoconferencing facilities. Many of our clients utilise the Quarta to enable remote cooperation. This considerably reduces the number of travel kilometres that one would otherwise clock up in order to attend conventional meetings. This offers companies with international operations in particular the greatest (environmental) benefit.

We provide affordable videoconferencing facilities in cooperation with our partner, Videxio. This enables larger numbers of firms to opt for videoconferencing. However, we also cooperate with Company webcast in broadcasting presentations. This enables participants to take part in events and lectures from their own location, therefore clocking up no travel kilometres whatsoever.

Our clients also involve us in the pursuit of their own aspirations in the field of CSR. For example, ABN AMRO Bank invited AVEX to participate in a unique circular economy project. In this transparent setting, the broad range of participants seek to develop practical solutions for CSR issues.