Delivering on Our Sustainability Commitments

At Covestro we integrate more sustainable practices across our operations – from how each employee contributes and how we execute projects, to maintaining the highest standards in safety, compliance, and business conduct. We extend this responsibility to our partnerships with stakeholders and throughout our entire value chain.

This comprehensive approach ensures that sustainability isn't just a commitment – it's how we create value for our customers, our communities, and our planet.

To support our vision, mission and our Sustainable Future Strategy, we have established important basic principles for our actions in six policies applicable throughout the Group. They provide our employees with guidance in the areas of:

Our primary objective is to turn development activities and products into solutions that create value for customers, society, the environment, employees, and investors. We accomplish this, for instance, by manufacturing products with excellent properties, environmental performance, usability, and cost-effectiveness. At the same time, we aim to make the life cycle of our products as resource-efficient as possible to extract the greatest possible value from the resources used in them.

We want to bring economic success into alignment with environmental and societal goals. Doing business in this way conforms to our purpose to make the world a brighter place. In making decisions and taking actions, we therefore equally consider the three dimensions of sustainability – people, planet, profit – while adhering to the principle of as little impact as possible. Our corporate “Sustainability Policy” underscores this intention. Special committees at Covestro are responsible for defining and managing important sustainability topics. These include the development and implementation of targets and packages of measures.

Innovation is an essential factor in mastering the challenges of a changing world, remaining competitive, and creating lasting value – inspired by and consistent with sustainability. Accordingly, we continually develop new products, processes, applications, and technologies that offer new perspectives. It is particularly important to us that innovation be an issue of personal concern to each and every one of our employees.

Our success is based on the outstanding skills and strong commitment of our employees. We therefore offer our employees a good and safe working environment and promote their professional and personal development. Covestro values a corporate culture that is curious, courageous, and colorful, and enables employees to successfully contribute their talents to the company. The core competencies and management skills that guide our employees’ further development are also oriented to these values.

Health, safety, environment, energy, and quality are vitally important for achieving our goals. We set high standards and continually work toward improving our performance. Our integrated HSEQ management system ensures the implementation of the specifications in our HSEQ Group Regulation in alignment with or conformity with the internationally recognized standards ISO 45001, ISO 14001, ISO 50001, and ISO 9001.

Corporate governance at Covestro is characterized by a strong sense of responsibility as well as adherence to ethical principles. This includes strict compliance with all statutory requirements and our voluntary commitments, which are anchored in our internal regulations.

The standards outlined in these policies must be adhered to by all employees worldwide. Additional details are provided in directives. Local procedures are used to implement the directives in the country subsidiaries. Compliance with the directives and local instructions is verified using internal audits and other measures. In addition, issues and action plans as well as target attainment are monitored in a management review. Corporate policies, directives, and local procedures together make up the Group regulations.

Our Commitment Beyond Compliance

Our Code of Conduct sets the basic standard regarding how we must act in our business dealings and behave towards each other within the Covestro group. It is published with the goal of strengthening our mutual understanding of lawful, ethical and sustainable conduct and gives guidance for day-to-day practice.

Beyond our Code of Conduct we have entered into additional voluntary commitments covering:

• Responsible Lobbying
• Tax Transparency

The principles outlined in our Code of Conduct are passed on in our global supplier network via our Supplier Code of Conduct. We expect all suppliers to adhere to the principles formulated in the Supplier Code of Conduct and to assume responsibility towards their own employees as well as business partners, society and the environment.
Our voluntary commitment to the Covestro CTPAT Statement of Support further strengthens supply chain security standards, particularly for US trade operations - Covestro CTPAT Statement of Support

Extending our Code of Conduct and Supplier Code of Conduct foundation, we have embraced supplementary voluntary commitments that include

• Covestro Human Rights Policy
• UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Ten principles of UN Global Compact
• UK Modern Slavery Act Statement
• Forced Labour in Canadian Supply Chains Report
• Water
• Responsible Care
• Conflict Minerals - Dodd-Frank Act, EU 2017/821

The concept of sustainability is thus firmly anchored in our corporate principles.