Dialogue and collaboration

We communicate regularly with our key stakeholders about sustainability-related topics.

We believe it is important to maintain an open and transparent dialogue with our employees, customers, and suppliers, policymakers and society, public authorities, capital market participants, the media, non-governmental organizations, and the scientific community. We regularly discuss topics relevant to sustainability, such as decarbonizing our production, raw material recovery along the value chain, a more flexible energy supply – in light of current geopolitical events as well. Other topics of interest include the Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), operational environmental protection at our sites, and our contribution to the objectives of the European Green Deal. These conversations also help us identify social trends and political developments.

For many years now, we have been actively involved in many national and international initiatives and projects on sustainability topics, such as climate and environmental protection, labor standards, human rights, and fighting corruption. For example, these include:

• B.A.U.M. – German Association of Environmental Management (since 2001)
• CDP (since 2015)
• DCGK – German Corporate Governance Code (since 2002)
• ERMA – European Raw Materials Alliance (since 2020)
• IG BCE – “Charta der Gleichstellung” der Industriegewerkschaft Bergbau, Chemie, Energie (“Equality Charter” of the Mining, Chemistry and Energy Industry Union, since 2014)
• PREVENT Waste Alliance (since 2020)
• Responsible Care – as a member of the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI), we are committed to the chemical industry’s sustainability initiative
• Stiftung KlimaWirtschaft – German CEO Alliance for Climate and Economy, actively promotes the European and German climate targets, founded as Stiftung 2° (since 2021)
• The Copper Mark (since it started in 2020)
• UNGC – United Nations Global Compact with local involvement in the networks in Germany and Bulgaria (since 2014/15)

If incidents of public interest occur despite all the precautionary measures we have taken, we focus on responsible exchange with our stakeholders and engage in constructive dialogue, taking critical comments seriously, and developing measures for improvement.