Hempel Foundation Celebrates 75 Years and Looks Ahead

With nearly $2.4 billion in sales in 2022, Hempel A/S is the 12th largest coatings manufacturer in the world, according to Coatings World’s Top Companies Report. A specialist in marine, architectural and industrial coatings, the Denmark-based company has approximately 7,500 employees and 26 factories worldwide.

There are many unique characteristics that separate Hempel from its competitors, but perhaps the most unique aspect of Hempel is its ownership structure. As a result of the foresight of J.C. Hempel, the company’s founder, the ownership of Hempel is through the Hempel Foundation, which celebrated its 75th anniversary at the end of last year.

“By working at Hempel, all colleagues contribute to the work of the Hempel Foundation through their daily work,” says Michael Hansen, group president and CEO of Hempel A/S. “The Foundation’s work is a great source of pride and inspiration for all of us at Hempel. It shows us that we can make a difference by doing what we do best: deliver trusted solutions that protect assets, beautify spaces and enhance lives.”

The History of Hempel and the Hempel Foundation

Hempel’s beginnings date back to 1915, when it was established by J.C. Hempel in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“He was 21 years old at the time and had just DKK 300 in his pocket, but his idea to sell ready-mixed marine paints would go on to revolutionize the Danish marine industry,” said Anders Holm, executive director of the Hempel Foundation. “J.C. Hempel delivered the first order himself, riding along on his bicycle with the cans of paint dangling from the handlebars.”

J.C. Hempel would lead the company for more than 70 years, and in 1948, he made a far-sighted decision. To ensure stable ownership and a healthy future for Hempel and its associated companies, the founder transferred all the shares to the newly established J.C. Hempel’s Legatfond (later the Hempel Foundation).

“The aim was to ensure ownership of the future by making a foundation the stable and long-term owner,” Holm noted. “At the same time, the Foundation would always have capital reserves available for the company.”

Today, the Hempel Foundation is owner of the Hempel Group and every year gives donations and works to accelerate change. The Foundation’s primary purpose is to maintain a solid financial and economic base for the Hempel Group, but it is also a dedicated philanthropist, dedicated to making a difference. Through partnerships and with a catalytic approach, the Hempel Foundation contributes to tackling some of the biggest challenges we are facing on earth.

“The Hempel Foundation is working to provide better education opportunities for children living in poverty, stop the loss of nature and make coatings more sustainable through a world-leading research center at DTU (Technical University of Denmark),” Holm said. “The Foundation works through partners across the world and sees great potential in strengthening their capacities to deliver impact at scale.”

The Hempel Foundation has made a sizable impact. The Hempel Foundation typically receives annual dividends from Hempel A/S. Historically, this has been around half of the net profit after taxes generated by the company. In 2022, this equated to approximately €3000 each from everyone working at Hempel.

In 2022 alone, the Foundation donated €21.4 million. To date, 387,000 children have benefitted from education projects since 2010, and 2,600,000 hectares (6.425 million acres) of key biodiversity areas have been sustainably protected in conservation programs.

Employees and the Hempel Foundation

The Hempel Foundation isn’t just about donating financial support from the corporate level. Employees of Hempel also participate in the Foundation, partly through their work but also through the iWitness Tour, where they get to see first-hand the positive changes they are enabling. In 2023, the iWitness Tour traveled to Rwanda; this year, Tanzania will be visited.

“Every Hempel employee contributes directly to reaching the goals of the Hempel Foundation by the dividend they all create through their individual expertise,” Holm said. “When Hempel grows, so does the potential impact of the Foundation’s work.”

In addition to the contribution Hempel colleagues make by just working for Hempel, each year, Hempel gives colleagues the opportunity to apply to experience first-hand the global philanthropic work of Hempel’s owner, the Hempel Foundation. It’s called the iWitness Tour.

“Working for a purpose-driven company offers a unique opportunity to experience first-hand the good work of our owner, the Hempel Foundation, within biodiversity and education,” said Pernille Fritz Vilhelmsen, chief people and culture officer and executive vice president at Hempel A/S. “Every year, Hempel invites colleagues to apply to join the Hempel Foundation on a visit to one of the destinations around the world where they support projects within biodiversity or education.

“It’s a very special opportunity that we open to all of our colleagues around the world,” Fritz Vilhelmsen added. “It makes me proud to come to work every day knowing that the profits we earn in Hempel contribute to making a positive difference around the world via the good work done by our owner, the Hempel Foundation.”

The trip has been a calendar staple for the past 11 years, enabling around 10 colleagues each year from all over the world to travel to a project site where they can witness the Foundation’s sustainable development projects and understand the positive difference they make to biodiversity and empowering children to learn by supporting education.

Here are some of the things that former participants of iWitness Tours past reflect on their experiences:

“Taking part in the iWitness Tour to Uganda gave me a unique look into the fantastic work of the Foundation. I am extremely proud of how our profits make a difference around the globe. Talking to our fantastic local partners and experience various projects first-hand brought tears to my eyes,” says Rob de Loose, learning and development partner commercial and services at Hempel.

“I saw the pride of a former poacher, now eco-ranger, who provides for his family by protecting a national park in Rwanda. What an amazing experience!” says Marlene Kaas, people experience specialist at Hempel.

“To see first-hand how the Hempel Foundation impacts people’s lives and to know we are building a better tomorrow warms my heart,” says Aklia Henson, commercial excellence marine – hub partner at Hempel.

The application process for the 2024 iWitness Tour has just opened at Hempel and this time, 10 colleagues from across the Hempel globe will have the chance to visit project sites in Tanzania.

Ongoing Projects in 2024

The Hempel Foundation works on accelerating change worldwide within education, biodiversity and science. Examples of ongoing projects in 2024 include:

• Continued innovation of coatings: The Hempel Foundation’s goal is to create a globally leading research center, which can make coatings more efficient and more sustainable. CoaST – the Hempel Foundation Coatings Science and Technology Centre – is established at DTU (Technical University of Denmark).

• There are different ongoing projects and collaborations that focus on sustaining the planet’s biodiversity. One of them is to reduce deforestation in Madagascar’s Makira-Masoala Forest, the country’s largest and most intact block of primary rainforest. Another one is to contribute to decreasing deforestation and to strengthening the alliances of local NGOs for the conservation of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is one of the top biodiversity hotspots of the world, but it still suffers from deforestation.

• Another area of positive impact that the Hempel Foundation and partners are working on is education. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 90 percent of children in the world’s poorest countries were unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10. That’s why the Foundation launched the Foundational Learning Action Tracker (FLAT) together with UNICEF with the aim of driving progress on foundational learning and fostering deeper collaboration and knowledge-sharing on what works to improve foundational learning.

• Another example of work going further into this year is to support and motivate teachers through incentives to achieve better teaching performances in Tanzania, where school participation has increased dramatically over the past two decades while the primary completion rate has dropped and remains below 70 percent.

Holm said that the Foundation also has long-range goals that it looks forward to in the coming years.

“The Hempel Foundation focuses on accelerating impact together with partners,” Holm said. “To fight learning poverty, the Foundation aims to reach 1 million children with educational efforts that accelerate basic reading, writing and numeracy skills by the end of 2030. For biodiversity, the Foundation aims to significantly contribute to conservation of at least five million hectares (12.4 million acres) of the most important tropical forests by 2030 through conservation actions that enable the long-term sustainability of tropical forests and their biodiversity.”