“We have been implementing projects related to sustainability for several years within ALRO. Our sustainability reports mirror the strategy we implement and the measures we take. At the level of the Board of Directors, we have a risk and sustainability committee that periodically evaluates the activities in this complex sector. Within ALRO we have a team specialized in sustainability that works daily in this regard,” Marian Nastase, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ALRO said during Romanian Sustainability Forum organized by Financial Intelligence.

We should ask ourselves if SMEs have the necessary resources to reach the level of transparency, analysis and implementation of these sustainability standards.

In the future, we must make sure that all our suppliers and all our clients have a green perimeter. I am talking about thousands of suppliers, and many of them are from Romania and many of them are SMEs. We have to ask ourselves if these providers have the necessary resources to implement these standards. We have to see what the costs are from the perspective of human resources, from the financial perspective. In addition, we must see if there is a fair remuneration for their effort. There are questions to which we do not have answers at the moment.

It is very easy to say that we want to have a body of sustainability experts and that we want to implement measures and norms, but it is very difficult for SMEs to implement these standards.

Another aspect related to sustainability is green washing. We see inquiries and investigations at the European level regarding this phenomenon. We must strengthen efforts to eliminate green washing. It is incorrect to invest human resources, financial resources and time to do things the right way, while others do green washing.

The authorities must intervene and eliminate the phenomenon of green washing, because otherwise anomalies will appear. Green washing represents an incorrect advantage over other competitors in the market.

Green washing affects competitiveness, because some companies invest small resources to pretend they are investing in energy efficiency projects.”