In our view, sustainable entrepreneurship and profitable growth go hand in hand; we can remain competitive only by creating added value for society. Through our innovative and high-quality products, we want to help meet global challenges. At the same time, these types of products secure our financial performance capability. Responsible action is an integral part of our company culture. This also includes respecting the interests of our employees, customers, investors, and society.
Safety and ethics matter just as much to us as business success. We mitigate ethical, economic, environmental, and social risks as far as possible. From the early stages of development through to disposal, we keep an eye on the entire life cycle of a product and integrate circular economy aspects. We apply strict sustainability standards to our procurement activities. During product manufacture, it is important to us to keep the environmental impact as low as possible, which is why safe production, high environmental standards and strict quality management are of course so crucial to us. By supplying products that meet extensive sustainability criteria, we also help other companies to achieve their sustainability goals.
Sustainability is a key element of our corporate strategy. We pursue three strategic sustainability goals: By 2030, we intend to achieve progress for more than one billion people through sustainable science and technology. Moreover, we will fully integrate sustainability into our value chains by the same year. In addition, we will achieve climate neutrality and reduce our resource consumption by 2040. With these goals, we are helping to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Overall, our sustainability strategy is centered on seven focus areas within which we are realizing numerous initiatives and projects today and tomorrow, measuring our progress as we go.
We use 16 key indicators to record and assess our progress towards achieving our sustainability goals. Our annual Long-Term Incentive Plan for Executive Board members and senior executives contains a sustainability factor. We use it to measure performance over a period of three years based on selected key indicators for each of our three sustainability goals. Details on how this sustainability factor is calculated can be found in the “Compensation Report”. In the reporting year, the company tied 15% of variable employee compensation to sustainability parameters.
As such, we are in the process of transforming our company with the aim of balancing environmental, social and governance aspects – for us as a company, for our stakeholders and for society at large. We are integrating sustainability into the innovation process and all parts of the value chain, in doing so positioning ourselves as a responsible company, and expect a lasting competitive advantage. It is our aim to decouple the growth of our businesses from negative environmental impacts.
More information about sustainability topics, as well as the key indicators used to monitor sustainability and the degree to which we have achieved our strategic goals, can be found in the “(Group-) Sustainability Statement”.
* The contents of this chapter or section are voluntary and therefore not audited. However, our auditor has read the text critically.