ALTANA’s Understanding of Sustainability
ALTANA consistently gears its activities to sustained profitable
growth. But we can only achieve economic success in the
long run if we also bear in mind ecological and social aspects
and anchor them firmly in our company. Our understanding
of sustainability as a triad of economy, ecology, and corporate
social responsibility is also reflected in ALTANA’s mission:
We provide innovative solutions based on integrated chemical,
formulation, and application expertise that make products
of daily life better and more sustainable.
Our solutions open up growth or savings potential for our
customers and can change entire markets.
As a result, we create value for our customers, employees,
shareholder, and society as a whole.
The View of Our Stakeholders
As a globally manufacturing specialty chemicals company,
ALTANA has diverse stakeholders with whom the Group and
its different companies maintain regular contact and exchange.
The content and results of these dialogs are among
the factors that inform ALTANA’s understanding of sustainability.
Among ALTANA’s most important stakeholders are its
customers, employees, owner, suppliers, other business
partners, authorities, associations, and nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs), as well as our neighbors at the different
sites.
In the year under review, the stakeholder analysis we performed
in 2017 was examined and the key sustainability
issues were still considered relevant for ALTANA. ALTANA’s
Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S) and Corporate Communications
departments developed with external support a
materiality matrix with 13 criteria. In the matrix, all topics
relating to the GRI Standards, existing stakeholder analyses,
ALTANA’s Keep Changing Agenda for the future, as well
as selected best practices in the form of reports and studies
were considered. In the process of developing the materiality
matrix, topics were prioritized based on their relevance
to stakeholder decisions and the consequences for the
ALTANA Group (see graphic on the following page). The stakeholders
incorporated in the materiality matrix, which were
identified based on high relevance, came from the areas of
customers, suppliers, NGOs, foundations, politics, and institutions.
Internally, EH&S, Corporate Communications, Strategy,
Procurement, Research and Development, Finances
and Controlling, Engineering, and Sales were incorporated.
ALTANA will continue to review the materiality matrix and
update it if necessary.
Objective Evaluation of Sustainability
To be able to measure not only the company’s business performance
but also its involvement in all areas of sustainability,
alongside key performance indicators and certified
management systems, ALTANA is using objective external
evaluations increasingly. The assessments of the rating company
EcoVadis play a special role.
EcoVadis analyzes four topics based on leading standards
(GRI, UN Global Compact, and ISO 26000): environment,
labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.
EcoVadis has become the leading assessment platform for
the chemical industry. Tens of thousands of companies now
work with EcoVadis.
ALTANA uses the objective EcoVadis rating of its production
sites and ALTANA AG as a whole to make the
Sustainability Management
Sustainability Management 7