Sustainability is measurable

With our goals, we are pursuing a comprehensive approach that includes the entire product life cycle, taking into account social, environmental and economic aspects. Furthermore, we want to make our progress transparent with hard key figures.

Our Sustainability goals by 2025

We will align our research and development projects (R&D) to address the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. By 2025, 80 percent of our R&D project spending will be targeted in areas that contribute to achieving these goals, either undertaken in partnership or endorsed by recognized institutions.

All of our suppliers with regular purchasing volumes of more than €1 million per year are evaluated according to sustainability criteria and verifiably meet our sustainability requirements by the year 2025.

This covers some 90 percent of the total purchasing volume. In addition all suppliers must comply with our code of conduct through accepting the conditions of our purchase orders or contracts. We also work closely with our strategically most important suppliers to improve their sustainability performance.

We aim to reduce our emissions from own production (scope 1) and the emissions from external energy sources (scope 2) to net zero by 2035.

We have pledged to help improve the living conditions of ten million people in underserved markets, primarily in developing and emerging countries, by the year 2025. In order to do so, we collaborate with customers, governmental and non-governmental organizations to develop affordable solutions based on our technologies and products, and open up new business models and solutions that improve the economic and social situation of these regions. We will focus primarily on affordable housing, sanitation and food security, for which our materials offer significant benefits.

Our products are based on carbon. In order to achieve added value from this element, we are working with recognized institutions and non-profit organizations along our value chain.

With the help of our carbon productivity initiative, we aim to increase the added value of the carbon used by us along the value chain. Using carbon for the production of polyurethane insulation foam, for example, allows us to save up to 70 times more energy over the course of the whole product lifecycle. This is due to lower energy consumption and reduced emissions.

We want to collaborate with partners along the value chain and people who share our understanding of sustainability in order to develop a significant and universally accepted metric. This will enable us to set a quantitative target for 2025.