People and society

Just as it did in 2020, in 2021 the coronavirus pandemic posed major challenges not only for us as a company, but also for society as a whole, which has had an impact on our social commitment and involvement over the past two years. In 2020, tesa put together a donation package amounting to five million euros in an effort to provide help quickly and without all the red tape during the global crisis. By the end of 2021, more than € 3.6 million had gone to a variety of social and humanitarian projects worldwide. One area that was especially close to our hearts was the education partnerships.

These are a suitable addition to our social commitment and involvement thus far: We at tesa are interested in helping young people again access specifically to subjects in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as well as important future technologies. The area of focus “For the next generation of innovators” has therefore been a part of our sustainability agenda since 2020. We began initiating projects in this area in Germany in 2014, and there have also been comparable projects in China since 2020. But due to the coronavirus pandemic, we were only able to continue our STEM efforts for young people in a limited capacity or, in many areas, not at all in 2021. Other educational projects with humanitarian objectives took more of a priority.

The overall situation with the coronavirus has threatened living and learning conditions for millions of children around the world, which is why tesa has been fighting side by side with the Save the Children organization to mitigate the negative impacts of the pandemic since 2020. With a donation amounting to € 1.25 million, we had supported selected projects in six countries – India, Vietnam, China, Mexico, Italy and Germany – on three continents by the end of 2021. tesa and Save the Children decided to continue their education partnership also in 2022. With another € 250,000, tesa is helping Save the Children to enable 150 million children around the world to return to school safely – this time with the global initiative “Safe Back to School.” With this global campaign, Save the Children is doing what it can to prioritize the right to education of children around the world.