Sustainable actions for mankind and the environment

In planning its development strategies, IMA takes into account the economic, social and environmental implications of its operations, with the aim of ensuring a balance between competitiveness, environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.  

Social responsibility in support of business competitiveness: these are the values that mark the path of IMA, world leader in the design and manufacture of automatic machines for the processing and packaging of pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food products.

A planned path, following the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), identified as the most relevant with respect to its value chain: needs expressed by customers and markets, sustainability features that increasingly must have the packaging of the future, but also the fight against poverty, the possibility of ensuring health and well-being through food security, looking at a development that respects people and the environment worldwide, ensuring inclusion and collaboration.

In recent years, IMA has integrated the interests of its stakeholders and the environmental, economic and social impacts of its activities into the definition of its corporate strategy and the implementation of its policies.

The steps of a commitment

• In 2012, IMA formalizes its commitment by joining associations and organizations that work to spread corporate sustainability (Impronta Etica and Save Food); it publishes its first Sustainability Profile. In the same year, IMA joined the CDP Supply Chain Program (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Program) and, from 2014 to date, the CDP Climate Change Program, representing a further development in the reporting of its direct and indirect emissions and responsibility towards their constant and gradual reduction.

• Since 2017, IMA has annually prepared the Consolidated Non-Financial Statement (DNF) where data and information of an environmental, social and economic nature are reported and then certified by an external auditing firm.

•  In October 2019, it organizes the first edition of the Multistakeholder Workshop, with the participation of companies, bodies and institutions, associations and academia. An initiative, this one, that strengthens the dialogue with all those subjects with whom it interacts directly or indirectly, comparing its strategic guidelines in the field of sustainability and gathering ideas and suggestions.

• In 2019, the IMA NoP (No-Plastic Program) project also takes shape. After the green light from the European Parliament to the directive limiting the use of several single-use plastic items, requests for new automatic machines able to reduce the use of plastic in packaging are increasing. IMA has already developed, in collaboration with the major market players, some extremely innovative solutions, thus anticipating the needs of the reference market.

Making (sustainable) innovation
The IMA Group has implemented many projects and initiatives. Among the priority objectives is the progressive adoption of solutions capable of reducing the energy requirements and environmental impact of its products, as well as the design of packaging machines and systems capable of optimizing the consumption of resources during production.

In partnership with customers, it conducts studies and proposes solutions for the use of innovative and environmentally friendly packaging, to reduce food waste and preserve and maintain the freshness of food, but also able to reduce the impact that plastic components have on the environment and marine ecosystems.

And again, in collaboration with customers and institutions, IMA promotes projects for the development of flexible primary packaging, to raise awareness of the proper use, reuse and recycling of packaging, in a logic of circular economy and, more generally, offers support to activities aimed at improving the synergy between business and environment in the logic of green economy.