Business Excellence 2019

56 Acquisition International - 2019 Business Excellence Awards Company: SUMA | Contact: Regina Sequeira Website: https://www.suma.pt/ Best Waste Management & Collection Company - Portugal SUMA (Serviços Urbanos e Meio Ambiente) is an innovative Portuguese waste management specialist supporting a diverse range of clients. We invited CEO, Manuel Costa to tell us more about the firm and the services it has to offer. upported by the solid foundations of its shareholders, SUMA has been leading a path of leadership and entrepreneurship since its inception in 1996, assuming the top position in the national waste sector and excellence in the management of its complete cycle for different typologies. Over the years the firm has come to lead the privatised waste management market in Portugal. Today, the firm is striving to always rise the standards of its activities, anticipate the needs of clients and meet the European goals for this area. Manuel explores how far the firm has evolved since inception and how it has enhanced the Portuguese waste management industry as a whole. “At SUMA, we believe that our path intertwines with that of the Portuguese waste sector itself. We started in an incipient context and accompanied and impelled some major achievements in the area. As we started out, we were offering urban cleaning and waste management (especially waste collection and transport) services to municipalities, but we soon branched out and diversified. “As an organisation SUMA is now comprised of some fifty companies dedicated to assuring excellence in the integrated management of the waste life cycle. These several specialized operators allowed the extension to services such as treatment, in which we also lead the market and manage transfer stations, sorting plants, landfills with biogas recovery, biological treatment plants, waste-to-energy plants, laboratory analysis and quality control, and environmental education.” Operating in the waste management market, SUMA has had to adapt its service offering over the years, and today its core focus is on sustainability to ensure that it remains at the forefront of emerging market developments, as Manuel is eager to emphasise. “Environmental awareness and education are both very important aspects of our DNA. It is a pillar of SUMA’s social responsibility policy and has been one of the key elements in the differentiation of the company’s performance. We are a reference in the area, not only in Portugal, but in every market that we operate in. “Since our inception, we have created and implemented over 400 campaigns aiming different environmental/citizenship issues and targets; we use these diverse approach strategies to ensure the most efficient results; we have developed mobile awareness units, interactive platforms, movies, music CDs and video clips. We are committed to indorse routines fitting reduction, reuse and recycling logic, to develop functional environmental literacy and to promote the change in behavioural paradigm change in populations, namely consumption patterns and natural resources’ preservation.” S Ultimately, as SUMA turns a quarter of a century old, it will remain committed to innovation and driving change in the waste management space, as Manuel proudly concludes. “In 2008 SUMA began its international path and, through our local subsidiaries, we now provide services in Angola, Brazil, Mozambique and Oman, where we have applied our know-how and shaped our management system to fit the local needs and realities. Moving forward, we hope to use these new local bases to drive change in these regions and support greater reform in the waste management space. “Now, as we did 25 years ago, we reinvent ourselves in the pulse of emerging needs, using our expertise and technical capacity. The future of SUMA is one of innovation as we seek to enhance our service offering and provide our clients with the waste management solutions they need.”