Second B4Plastics Summer School – highlighting our gender balance

In September, we hosted our second annual B4Plastics Summer School, which comprised a 3-day workshop and team-building exercise for our colleagues and PhD researchers, to discuss our shared values and vision for the company.

For a few sunny days, we were delighted to bring all our entire international green team to our headquarters in Dilsen-Stokkem. Together, we took part in a series of activities: presentations of our sales, R&D and production departments, tours of the facilities, brainstorming sessions on possible future products and services, and academic presentations from our PhD researchers from UGent, KU Leuven, University of Graz and Maastricht University.

Brainstorming session at the Terhills Resort

Our interdisciplinary team consists of experts, engineers and scientists with a variety of backgrounds, skills, and perspectives. We see this collective skillset as a massive advantage, as it provides opportunities for new dynamics, critical feedback on our decision making, and adds to our potential as a company. This gives us the opportunity to openly discuss the company’s future and further define our mission to work towards one greater goal together.

In the same vein, it was during the summer school that another milestone for B4Plastics was realised – as you can see in our team picture, we are fully gender balanced! Exactly half of the colleagues in our workforce are female, which means a great deal to us. Despite the world’s first recorded chemist being female, women are still generally underrepresented in the chemical industry, biotechnology, and other STEM fields. In our opinion, this imbalance limits the scope and potential of the industry.

As a company, we respect diversity in our hiring practices and working culture. We are proud to be striding forwards to a better future, not only in our environmental policies but with the diversity of our team as well. To learn more about our working life at B4Plastics, check out our ‘a day in the life of’ articles, where we explore the backgrounds and daily work of our green team.