Sustainability

Our Targets

Business success tomorrow means creating value for the environment, society and business. That is why we have set ourselves ambitious targets along our entire value chain. We report transparently on our target achievement so that our stakeholders can track our progress. In order to grow profitably, we want to grow sales volumes faster than global chemical production, further increase our profitability, achieve a return on capital employed (ROCE) considerably above the cost of capital percentage and increase the dividend per share every year based on a strong free cash flow.

We also pursue broad sustainability targets. In this context, we significantly raised our CO2 reduction target in 2021.2 We want to strengthen the sustainability focus of our product portfolio and will update our portfolio steering targets in 2022.3 We also strive to strengthen the sustainability of our supply chains and use resources responsibly. We want to further improve safety in production. In addition, we aim to promote diversity within the company and create a working environment in which our employees feel that they can thrive and perform at their best.

The objective of these targets is to steer our business into a sustainable future, and at the same time, contribute to the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are focusing on issues where we as a company can make a significant contribution, such as climate protection, sustainable consumption and production, and fighting hunger.

Profitable growth

Effective climate protection

Sustainable product portfolio

Responsible procurement

Resource efficiency and safe production

Employee engagement and diversity

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1 Includes Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. In March 2021, we replaced our previous target of CO2-neutral growth until 2030 (baseline 2018: 21.9 million metric tons of CO2e) with a new, more ambitious climate protection target to reduce absolute CO2 emissions by 25% compared with 2018 (new target: 16.4 million metric tons of CO2e).
2 We already reached our 2025 sales target for Accelerator products in 2021. Consequently, we will update our product portfolio steering target over the course of 2022.
3 We regularly calculate the employee engagement level. The most recent survey was conducted in 2020. The next survey is planned for spring 2022.

We act in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals