Evonik steps up its commitment to corporate responsibility (CR)

• CR report 2009 published
• CR program for the next few years presented
• Evonik is aligning its business portfolio to megatrends and thus making a contribution to sustainable development

Essen. In its second Corporate Responsibility (CR) Report, Evonik Industries gives further details of its CR strategy and sets out its CR program. Klaus Engel, Chairman of the Executive Board of Evonik, underscores the importance of corporate responsibility for the Group: "CR is a corporate obligation and is therefore integrated into our management structures." The CR program for the coming years provides details of how this is to be implemented in the Evonik Group.

Evonik wants to grow responsibly, create value and make a contribution to the sustainable development of society. On a long-term view, sustainable development of society and industry as the basis for our prosperity is only possible with the aid of innovation and modern technologies stresses Engel. "For that we need people’s trust." He calls for a basic social consensus, which needs to be cultivated and driven forward through dialogue. "That is the only way to gain acceptance and establish confidence in industry and its technologies," comments Engel. "Everyone involved bears responsibility for that. Evonik is making its contribution and in future we will be taking up the expectations of stakeholder groups even more systematically than in the past," he says.

Evonik includes employees in shaping CR

Ralf Blauth, Chief Human Resources Officer and the member of Evonik’s Executive Board responsible for CR, sees corporate responsibility as a key aspect of corporate culture. Consequently, CR will be a central issue running through vocational training at the company in the future. "The CR in vocational training project is particularly important to me because it introduces employees to this issue early on and shows young people that acting responsibly creates value," he stresses. Evonik embarked on this project in fall 2009 as part of its CR program. In the mid-term, CR will be established as a quantifiable parameter that forms an integral part of the performance objectives agreed with employees.

Evonik links CR closely to its business

Evonik’s CR program is geared to placing CR on a more systematic basis and putting it into practice within existing management structures through five main projects. A CR management model tailored specifically to Evonik will be in place by 2012. In future, CR issues management will help avoid risks such as those arising from ecological developments, and provide the impetus for strategies and innovations. Alongside the project to integrate CR into vocational training, in fall 2009 Evonik initiated a project to integrate aspects of CR into supplier management. The focus here is on ensuring that social, environmental and employment standards are met. By drafting a climate strategy, Evonik aims to better identify the impact of climate change on its business and the opportunities it offers so these aspects can be integrated more effectively into decision-making processes.

Contributing to sustainable development: Evonik's lighthouse projects

As a global leader in specialty chemicals, Evonik's business portfolio is aligned to the three major global megatrends: resource efficiency, health and nutrition, and globalization of technologies. The CR Report contains articles on three lighthouse projects that reflect these megatrends:

As part of the Lessy project (lithium electricity storage systems), Evonik is developing and testing the first large-scale lithium-ceramic storage system. In the future, such storage systems will improve the ability to regulate power from renewable energy sources and thus reduce the load on conventional and pumped storage power plants.

Evonik produces methionine, an amino acid that enables poultry to digest feed more efficiently. In this way, Evonik makes a contribution to providing high-quality food for the world's population. Moreover, for every metric ton of carbon dioxide generated in the production of methionine, 23 metric tons are saved over the product lifecycle.

The new integrated production complex for polymers, starting products for polymers and coating raw materials in Shanghai is Evonik's biggest investment project in China to date and highlights the company’s broad technological expertise for global growth markets.

Extensive and transparent reporting

The 84-page CR report outlines projects, data and facts relating to corporate responsibility at Evonik and also contains the Group's first progress report for the UN Global Compact. When it joined the Global Compact, Evonik gave an undertaking that it would respect its ten principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environmental protection and anti-corruption. The audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has conducted a limited assurance review of selected data in the report. Evonik's CR Report is based on the guidelines issued by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), an internationally recognized standard for extensive sustainability reporting. The GRI has confirmed that the report meets the criteria for Application Level B+.

The Corporate Responsibility Report 2009 can be downloaded from our website at www.evonik.com/responsibility.