We are committed to being a good neighbour to the communities and ecosystems around our production sites and distribution hubs. These are not just the places that we operate but they are the places where our colleagues live with their friends and families.
We want to support these communities wherever we can, protect nature and watersheds, procure goods and services responsibly and, where possible, locally. We will leave these regions in a healthy state as and when we decommission our assets.
A good and responsible neighbour
Being valued by the local community creates goodwill and trust.
By partnering with our local communities and working closely with local officials, we are able to grow together. To minimise our negative environmental impacts and maximise positive social outcomes, WE Soda conducts annual site audits for compliance with environmental regulation, biennial stakeholder surveys for community engagement, a community grievance system, and Economic and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs) to measure our economic impact. WE Soda also goes beyond engagement to be a proactive and contributing member of the community. Most of our employees are local, and our involvement in their communities fosters pride and loyalty.
Towards nature positive
Our headline target to be water neutral by 2040 was combined with a commitment to be nature positive by the same date, due to the intrinsic link between water basins and natural ecosystems.
For us, nature positive means committing to protecting the surrounding natural environment, continuing to expand on our local initiatives and collaborations to conserve, and where necessary restore, nature and biodiversity. Taking a nature positive approach will help us stand up to increased customer and investor scrutiny on this topic and enable use to demonstrate leadership in our sector.
Towards a more integrated watershed approach
Water is both vital to our production process, and to the local communities where we operate.
We operate in water-stressed areas and we expect pressure on this vital resource to increase still further. Therefore, simply reducing water consumption does not protect us or local people from shortages. To ensure there is enough clean water to go around, we closely monitor our water footprint and actively engage with local communities.
Our target is to be water neutral, where we are restoring at least as much water in our catchments as we are withdrawing from the environment.
Responsible decommissioning and closure
Our work cannot simply stop at the point of our production operations ceasing – we are responsible for leaving these regions in a better state than when we found them.
While it is still a few decades away, we have the plans and funds to restore the landscapes we currently operate in after our exit, and to make sure that existing economic dependencies are all managed during the transition. We want to make sure that the communities in which we operate are resilient to our departure.
Raising standards at our mines – IRMA
IRMA is a global, multi-sector initiative that sets standards for mining. It offers the only independent, third-party assessment of industrial-scale mine sites that is governed equally by the private sector, local communities, civil society and workers.
We have set ourselves a target of achieving IRMA 75 accreditation across all of our mining sites by 2030. In 2025, we began the IRMA self-assessment (starting in Türkiye) and we are securing commitments from raw material suppliers to adopt these same standards. This will provide reassurance for our investors and our customers who will increasingly require this standard to be met.
Responsible procurement
With over 90% of our procurement coming from within Türkiye and the US, improving the sustainability credentials of critical suppliers forms an important part of our plan.
Our procurement programme is guided by principles of responsible sourcing, ensuring that environmental, social and ethical considerations are embedded into all our purchasing activities. In Türkiye our sites have committed to concrete timings and targets while in the US we are finalising our procurement plan. We will ensure that plans for sites in both places will be aligned and incorporated into our overall sustainability planning. This will ensure a consistent approach to sustainable procurement across the globe.
