Our
Impact

At Reinhart we understand sustainability as our effort to remain competitive without restricting the opportunities for future generations. Our vision is a sustainable and fair value chain from production to customer. The transition towards a more sustainable business model is structured along the following topics, (1) ensuring full compliance, (2) fostering stakeholder engagement, and (3) strengthening our supply chain. This is what we refer to as Sustainable Impact, a strategic directive that guides us over five years (2019–2024).

Reinhart is motivated by the principles of responsible business conduct. The company is active in an international and rapidly changing environment that requires all stakeholders to adhere to defined principles and ethical standards. Reinhart communicates its values and principles for responsible business practices in its Code of Conduct, which is valid across all offices and operations. Employees must treat business partners fairly and strictly separate the interests of Reinhart from private interests. Reinhart follows all applicable laws and regulations in countries where it operates. It promotes and implements responsible leadership and management by fostering transparency, accountability, responsibility, openness, integrity, and rejects any form of corruption, money-laundering, and terrorism-financing.

Reinhart supports sustainable cotton, and we stand behind all efforts to promote best practices throughout the value chain. We actively promote organic cotton that restricts, amongst other criteria, the use of agrochemicals and genetically modified seeds. As one of the world’s largest merchants of organic cotton, Reinhart contributed to the development of this market over the past twenty years, including through its existing projects and gins in Africa. An internal Environmental Policy was published to introduce our environmental management approach with concrete action steps to motivate staff to act upon with immediate effect.

Reinhart’s longtime, knowledgeable employees at the Swiss headquarters and across the various subsidiaries are proof of our joint commitment to attract and retain staff. We take an active role in supporting social community projects, the arts, and sports through the Paul Reinhart Foundation. At the regional level we support projects in Winterthur and across our sourcing regions through programs to support the education of children over the past ten years and since last year also the entrepreneurship of young adults.
We listen to our stakeholders and support a constructive dialogue on labor and human rights. We believe in cotton’s vital role in securing millions of jobs and also providing food-security worldwide, be it for smallholder farmers in Africa, where cotton is picked by hand and fields are cultivated in rotation with important food crops such as maize and rice, or for highly industrialized farms, such as in Brazil, where cotton is cultivated together with soy beans in double crops (so called “safrinha”).

Our economic impact is built on long-term, trusting relationships with suppliers, customers, and any other business partners. All employees are mutually bound to the values of integrity, reliability, commitment, and entrepreneurship. Ultimately this commitment is reflected in our long-term business success and our compliance with applicable regulations, and it guides us in our daily decision-making.