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Partnerships and Community

ENVIRONMENT AND INNOVATION Environment and innovation
ENVIRONMENT AND INNOVATION

INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY – key corporate values

Innovation and sustainability are Group’s key corporate values and it is our wish for corporate giving projects that our partners contribute to environmental protection and/or develop innovative solutions with long-term benefits for the entire community to be stronger represented in the future period.

With that in mind, we encourage all our existing and potential partners to develop and propose initiatives that include waste management, innovative packaging methods, reduced impact on soil and water and reduced emissions.

It is with pride that we highlight some of the existing corporate giving projects in the area of environment protection below.

Fortenova grupa d.d. and Mercator in Slovenia organized a common donation to the Municipality of Sežana in Slovenia, which incurred severe damage in a large-scale fire that struck more than 2000 hectares of forest area in 2022. The donated funds have been invested in the prevention of potential future fires in this area, and the donation was also accompanied by a voluntary drive of both companies’ employees.

With the project “Together for an IDEAl environment” IDEA Montenegro and its partners organized a contest for all educational institutions with a view to educating on the importance of waste disposal, and sponsors the regional ESG Adria Summit.

The company Sarajevski kiseljak joined the project “Let’s Do It – A Million Seedlings in One Day”, organized by the volunteers of the Citizens’ Association Ruke (Hands), through which the employees of Sarajevski kiseljak took part in a big afforestation drive on the Igman mountain in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Except by its own activities, the company Jamnica also affects the reduction of emissions through sponsorship support in the afforestation project Compositing by Planting in Croatia, and together with the parent company Fortenova grupa d.d. it also sponsors many expert conferences in Croatia with focus on sustainability.

Furthermore, Jamnica and PIK Vrbovec actively support the development of innovations through the project Digital Innovation Incubator, which has so far brought together more than 6500 secondary school and university students, who have developed over 600 innovative projects.

Standing out in terms of supporting innovations as part of its corporate giving activities is also the company mStart, which sponsors various initiatives, from students’ competitions in designing web and mobile applications to conferences connecting the future of finance and technology.

LOCAL COMMUNITY Local community
LOCAL COMMUNITY

CORPORATE VALUE – COLLABORATION

Collaboration, being an important corporate value of Fortenova grupa d.d., has been built into the very foundation of our business. We operate on five different markets, where over 45,000 of our employees have, due to teamwork and good collaboration, successfully developed around a hundred brands and more than 4,000 products.

Collaboration is also the foundation of all our corporate giving activities in general, and when it comes to sponsorship and donation projects we would particularly like to single out the collaboration focused on local communities and the collaboration with the professional public and with educational institutions.

Collaboration with the Local Community

We recognize the needs of the communities in which we operate and support local projects that are of particular importance for those communities.

In selecting specific areas for collaboration through corporate giving, we have put stronger emphasis on the overall positive contribution to be achieved in the community by way of that collaboration. Hence, in selecting sponsorship and donation projects, advantage over one-off events is given to projects that raise the community’s standards of living, projects that drive education and represent tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the respective community.

The company PIK Vrbovec supports the event “What our elders used to eat” (“Kaj su jeli naši stari”) in Vrbovec, Jamnica has been partner of many years to major cultural events in Jastrebarsko as well as partner to numerous sports associations on the territory of the Municipality of Pisarovina. The company Vupik is involved in supporting the local community in Vukovar and Belje in supporting local cultural and sports clubs in Slavonia as well as various events promoting local food and drinks. Sarajevski Kiseljak has sponsored sports clubs and major cultural events in Kiseljak in BH, and the company Dijamant has supported sporting and cultural events in Zrenjanin in Serbia. Group’s retail companies have as well provided significant support to the local community, which is frequently related to new retail location openings, and to a healthy lifestyle and local sports.

Collaboration with the Professional Community and Educational Institutions

Being a Group that operates in various business areas, for us it is particularly important to follow global trends and adjust them to our operating practices and our environment in order to keep being the leaders in innovation culture, not only in our own activities but also for the benefit of the consumers and the society in general.

Therefore, the corporate giving projects that we pursue to support the professional communities are primarily intended to emphasize our support to and active role in exchanging knowledge. We sponsor conferences in the areas of retail, food and digital transformation, conferences dedicated to the topics of sustainability and health and are partners to significant conferences in other business areas that are part of our operations.

Group’s companies are sponsors and donors to academic institutions and support educational institutions by way of corporate giving. The company Belje supports the faculties of agronomy in Osijek and Zagreb, Zvijezda has a collaboration with the secondary hospitality school and IDEA Montenegro with the secondary school of economics, Mercator Slovenia has for many years been supporting the state competition of secondary schools in sales techniques, with students of vocational schools from different parts of Slovenia competing. Also, in the light of promoting the sales profession, Mercator has been collaborating with students and secondary schools in different areas, such as obligatory practical work, holidays, scholarships and professional training, and for the purpose of an as comprehensive as possible experience for future salespeople Mercator has installed and organized 14 training stores in secondary schools across Slovenia.

Through corporate giving the company mStart provides support to IT conferences and events with focus on innovation and the use of artificial intelligence and data sciences.

HUMANITARIAN WORK AND VULNERABLE GROUPS Humanitarian work and vulnerable groups
HUMANITARIAN WORK AND VULNERABLE GROUPS

CORPORATE VALUE – RESPONSIBILITY AND INTEGRITY

The support to humanitarian initiatives and vulnerable groups reflects Group’s profound commitment to the corporate values of responsibility and integrity, where it focuses its resources on those within the community that need them most. As part of advocating responsibility and integrity within the community, through sponsorship and donation projects we are also dedicated to strengthening gender equality and inclusion in the society.

Children and Young People

We take particular pride in our support provided for many years to the most vulnerable groups in the society, including children, young people and persons with special needs. We would like to point out the support provided by Fortenova grupa d.d. and its companies to organisations such as the SOS Children’s Villages, with which we collaborate in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zveza prijateljev mladine  (Young People’s Friends Association) in Slovenia and the “Defendology” Center from Montenegro, through which we help children without appropriate parental care.

As part of the project IDEA Caravan, the company Mercator Serbia has for nine consecutive years toured 30 cities in Serbia and each year distributed 7,000 sweet packages to over 60 children’s homes and children’s hospitals.

Konzum Croatia, in collaboration with MultiPlusCard has organized and implemented Christmas donations to around ten organisations and associations helping children, families in need, the elderly and infirm as well as animals without proper care and additionally, in collaboration with MasterCard, donated funds for children from socially deprived families. With the aforementioned competition “We Support the Best from Croatia” it has supported the best projects pursued by sports clubs working with preschool, primary school and secondary school children and through the extension of the customer loyalty programme titled “Little Big Talents”, Konzum has equipped schools with school supplies, sporting equipment and accessories required for school activities.

For six years Mercator has organized the multiply awarded children’s culinary competition “Little Chef of Slovenia”, with 16,000 children aged 8 to 15 years from over 40 primary schools in Slovenia having taken part in it so far. The project has accomplished the key goal of raising awareness of the importance of nutrition among young people, and apart from being educated on the importance of quality nutrition, the winners of the show are rewarded each year with a financial amount donated to the winning school for projects intended to support the prosperity of its students.

Non-Financial Support

Along with the financial donations, Group’s companies provide their support through donations in kind and take part in initiatives related to the reduction of food waste – Konzum has for six consecutive years been the largest food donor in Croatia, while at the same time four of our companies – Fortenova grupa d.d., Konzum, Zvijezda and PIK Vrbovec have, upon initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture, acceded to the Voluntary Agreement on Preventing and Reducing Food Waste – “Together against Food Waste”.

Standing out as an additional form of non-financial support with a lasting positive impact on the community that we have been practicing is also corporate volunteering. Fortenova grupa d.d. is one of overall 35 companies to have signed the Volunteering Charter, thus confirming that in the forthcoming period we shall strengthen a systematic approach to developing employee volunteering. The first volunteering drive took place in the area of Kras in the Municipality of Sežana in Slovenia, having assembled volunteers from Fortenova grupa d.d. and Mercator Slovenia, as part of a common donation project intended to prevent potential future fires in this area of Slovenia.

Gender Equality and Inclusion

Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy (DEI) rests on three pillars: gender equality, inclusion and welfare of employees, and through corporate giving activities we strive to support those important topics in the community as well.

When it comes to supporting inclusion through corporate giving projects, we would like to single out the partnership of Zvijezda with the Zagreb Blind People’s Association through the donation of raw materials for the production of “Soap with Dots” to a company employing blind and visually impaired people, as well as the support provided by Zvijezda and Dijamant to persons with Down syndrome. Mercator Slovenia has had a collaboration of many years with the Paraplegics’ Association of the Ljubljana Region, supporting their basketball in wheelchairs, while Fortenova grupa d.d. has supported the Croatian Paralympic Committee (Hrvatski paraolimpijski odbor (HPO)) and, as part of this collaboration, received a para-certificate and the status of friend (amis) to the Croatian Paralympians on their way to Paris 2024.

We have also supported the empowerment of women through sponsorship projects, thus fostering the collaboration of Fortenova grupa d.d. with Ivana Habazin, famous female boxer and welterweight world champion and Konzum’s collaboration with Mirela Kardašević, multiple champion and recorder in freediving.

Fortenova grupa d.d. has also been supporting gender equality by way of active participation in conferences such as “Redefining Success”, which are dedicated to the topics of women’s success in business and initiatives such as “Equality SQUAREd” (TRGni se za ravnopravnost) – a project focusing on increasing the share of women’s names in naming public areas. The companies Jamnica and Konzum have joined the project as well in Croatia, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina Konzum BiH and Sarajevski kiseljak.

SPORTS AND CULTURE Sports and culture
SPORTS AND CULTURE

CORPORATE VALUE – EXCELLENCE

Through the broad spectrum of our sponsorship support to sports and culture, it is our goal to enrich the lives of our consumers and communities by promoting excellence as well as togetherness as fundamental values.

Togetherness through outstanding achievements in sports

Supporting professional sports is a key part of corporate giving at Fortenova grupa d.d. and its operating companies, reflecting the corporate value of excellence.

The fundamental value of sports is the focus on a healthier way of life, which improves the quality of life – one of Group’s strategic objectives. At the same time, through such support we indirectly strengthen the bonds with our consumers, and the additional values promoted by sports in their core are also the values that we advocate in business – teamwork, continuous efforts and focus on results.

Fortenova grupa d.d., Konzum, Jamnica and PIK Vrbovec in Croatia and Mercator in Slovenia support the respective national football teams. Konzum and Jamnica are sponsors to the Croatian Water Polo Association and they also support numerous other sports – from handball, cycling and athletics to rowing and diving. Additionally, with the competition “We Support the Best from Croatia”, Konzum pays particular attention to young athletes – through the best projects pursued by sports clubs working with children of different age groups – preschool, primary school and secondary school.

Mercator in Slovenia supports the Skiing Association and Mercator Serbia provides support to the Basketball Association of Serbia and the Crvena Zvezda Basketball Club.

In addition to the support provided to professional athletes, Group’s companies also support recreational sports events, which are – due to their focus on health – important both to our customers and to the broader population. Standing out in that sense are Mercator Slovenia’s support to the Ljubljana Marathon, Mercator Serbia’s to the Belgrade Marathon as well as Konzum’s and Jamnica’s support to the greatest running events in Croatia.

Excellence in Culture

We also actively support the corporate value of excellence through sponsorship collaborations in the area of culture. In that segment, we would like to highlight the support to events preserving the cultural heritage and the identity of the community, such as Tilting at the Ring (Trka na prstenac), supported by Fortenova grupa d.d. and its companies Konzum, Jamnica and Agrolaguna, and the Autumns of Vinkovci (Vinkovačke jeseni), an event supported by the company PIK Vinkovci. Besides supporting significant events, Group’s companies also collaborate with cultural institutions that symbolize excellence in their respective area, with Mercator Slovenia and its collaboration with the Ljubljana Festival in Slovenia particularly standing out. They also support cultural events that generate broad interest among the audience, such as Konzum’s and Jamnica’s support to the Ultra Europe Festival in Croatia or Mercator-S’s support to the EXIT Festival in Serbia.