We spoke to Dimitrios Stratakis, Unismack’s CEO, about how businesses like his are making changes to ensure they are socially and ethically responsible and sustainable.

I have always felt that ‘responsibility’ is not something you do, it is something you have. Unismack has always been a natural extension of its family value system and this has had an impact on how and why we do business in the way we do. Our company has never been about making profit first, it has always been first and foremost about making a difference. I think that this vision has stood us in good stead for the future and makes ‘responsibility’ more of a natural progression.

How will you ensure that the message around being ethical and responsible filters down through the organisation? As we grow, I recognise it is time to re-think what being more responsible actually means for a larger organisation like ours. We have to ask ourselves the more difficult questions such as: How do we make sure that our values, which feel so natural to the founding team, become part of our wider company culture in the future? How do we make sure that we are constantly challenging ourselves? How do we make sure that as our ability to have an impact grows, our actions follow through? The truth is, there is no clear path and we have a lot of work to do in this respect, but every business needs to start somewhere. We are focusing on our people first to make sure we offer a safe working environment that nurtures creativity and helps people to aspire and grow.

What are your views on supporting charities and giving back in that sense?

Rethinking our local impact is also vital to create change too. Over the years we have supported local charities, humanitarian efforts and various initiatives that align with our own core values. But financial support by itself does not create the bonds that we need and whilst these initiatives are worthy and meaningful, they are not always impactful in the long term. Our aspiration is to create more meaningful engagement by encouraging our employees to give their time to local charities or facilitating and supporting this process through company engagement.

Giving back is not about appearances, it is about essence. When we decide to support a cause, we will never spend more time talking about it rather than actually doing something about it. You have to walk the walk. In fact, unless there is merit in raising awareness, sometimes it’s better to let actions speak for themselves.

What changes are you making as a business to become more responsible?

We are forming a plan to generate our own energy through solar panels and as we expand our facilities, we have made provisions to support this. Our goal is to power our plant with renewable energy that we generate. We are also shifting our small company car fleet to electric cars and plan to have chargers at our facility in the future.

At the same time, we are taking steps to eliminate plastic packaging completely from our products by the end of 2021.

While I am acutely aware that these are only baby steps, they are meaningful ones. My goal is to make sure that doing business responsibly remains at the core of our organisation in a relevant manner, particularly as society and environmental needs change around us and as our business continues to grow.