Nuqul Group submits its 'Communications on Progress' report to UN Global Compact's initiative

Being a pioneering member in this leading initiative underscores Nuqul Group's strive to build a sustainable organization by adopting significant principles serving all stakeholders and confirming its corporate citizenship.

Protecting the environment has been the chosen principle for Nuqul Group's first year report which focused on compiling all data with key measures implemented over the years in this field such as reducing both waste emissions into the air and water consumption per finished goods output; along with enhanced efforts to further recycle by-products and control pollution to acceptable level.

The Group has decreased the overall water consumption from 10-15 m3/ton of paper to 6-6.5 m3/ton of paper, and resulted in a 40% reduction in heavy fossil fuel consumption by switching to electrical units.

Dr. Tareq Abu Ghazaleh, Director of Operations Support, commented, "Being an active member of the Global Compact is based on continuous improvement; over the past years, we worked hard to create a strong and positive impact on our surrounding environment, and as we approach 2010; we will continue to build on the already achieved momentum, the challenge will be harder and we will raise the bar to achieve world records and meet international standards."

Mr. Luc Stevens, United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, said, "The Global Compact is a framework for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with the ten universally accepted Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. These ten principles should bring concrete advantages to companies by determining how the company behaves toward society. By encouraging private enterprises to embrace, promote and respect the fundamental values of human rights, labor, management of the environment and the fight against corruption, we trust that businesses will be more involved in development."

"The United Nations Development Program is entrusted by the UN to bring the Global Compact to the national level," Mr. Stevens also added.

Moreover, Nuqul Group has adopted the sustainable forestry approach through its "Care for Tree" program. Till this date; the Group planted over 5,000 trees and decreased ozone depleting products by half with the goal of completely eliminating the use of such products by the end of 2009 in addition to increasing the number of planted trees encouraging renewable forestry and all the benefits carried with it.

Nuqul Group is one of the first companies in Jordan to become an active participant in the Global Compact.

Established in 1952, Nuqul Group brings together 31 regional and global companies, more than 5500 employees and exports its products to over 45 exports markets worldwide.