TRUSTED PARTNER

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We draw on our value-oriented corporate culture and our scientific and technological expertise to strengthen our performance while maintaining our integrity. We deliver safe and best-in-class product and technology solutions to our customers and consumers. We integrate sustainability in our portfolio and in our business processes, and provide transparent reporting on this to our stakeholders.

Performance 

Reliably deliver best-in-class product performance and chemical safety, as the foundations of our business success.

Our business units – Consumer Brands and Adhesive Technologies – are responsible for adapting our sustainability strategy to their operating needs. They align their brands and technologies to sustainability in line with the specific challenges of their product portfolio. They also work on sustainable products and tomorrow’s key technologies. Achieving our ambitious new targets means integrating sustainability even more closely into our brand and business strategies in the future.

Our goal is to transform our company and our product portfolio sustainably so that we can stand at the side of our stakeholders as a reliable partner. We strive to ensure that each new product contributes to sustainability. We also intend to provide our customers and consumers with a comprehensive sustainability profile of our products by 2025. Our aim is to offer increasingly better solutions, products and services that also have a positive impact on the environment and society, and therefore make a positive contribution to value.

Excellent quality and performance are the central value propositions for our brands and technologies, and create the foundation for our business success. Products that combine high performance with a reduced environmental footprint are key factors for successful future-oriented business development.

Transparency

Integrate sustainability in our business governance with transparent reporting, disclosure and engagement.

The implementation of our sustainability strategy is based on globally uniform codes and standards, integrated management systems, and an organizational structure with clearly defined responsibilities. Within Henkel, efficient processes also contribute to environmental protection and occupational health and safety, while additionally reducing resource consumption and costs. We use a variety of methods and tools to assess and manage our corporate sustainability and to measure the progress that we make toward our objectives across the entire company and our value chain. The indicators we record throughout the company provide transparency while helping us to identify potential improvements, manage activities and monitor achievements.

We engage in dialog with opinion leaders, the professional public, academia, international rating agencies and analysts for many years. Sustainability analysts and professional institutions regularly evaluate how companies manage the economic, environmental and social aspects of their business activities. We welcome these external assessments of our sustainability performance, as they lead to greater transparency in the market and show us how our performance is assessed. We also consider the assessment criteria of various financial and sustainability-oriented ratings and the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative. We also explore ways to further strengthen transparency in ESG reporting and governance and the traceability of key commodities.

100 % transparency and traceability for palm and palm kernel oil by 2025

From our activities, we have learned that there is a need for further optimization with regard to transparency and traceability, especially for palm-kernel-oil-based derivatives, and that cross-industry initiatives are necessary to make the achievement of the “zero net deforestation” target verifiable.

Governance & Compliance

Our Compliance organization has global responsibility for all preventive and reactive measures. It is supported by integrated management systems and an organizational structure with clearly defined responsibilities.

External sustainability assessments

Assessment and recognition from independent sustainability experts increases transparency and provides important feedback about how effectively we are implementing our sustainability strategy.

Collaboration

Scale sustainability impact with our partners, leading to responsible business practices in our supply chains.

Expectations for social and environmental responsibility are changing again and again. That’s why companies rely on open dialogue with communities, suppliers, customers and many other stakeholders to make sure they provide solutions to the challenges that matter most. Understanding the social demands that stakeholders of all kinds place on our company is a key component of our sustainability management.

100% Responsible Sourcing

Our responsible sourcing approach focuses on sustainability aspects along our supply chains for the benefit of people and our planet with the aim of driving transformational change together with our partners. Intensive dialog and close cooperation with our suppliers are essential for achieving sustainable business, process and production practices. Over a decade ago, we established a framework for sustainable procurement in the supply chains of the chemical industry based on cooperation, trust and responsibility.

Our ongoing ambition is to commit to 100 percent responsible sourcing together with our partners. The key element here is our responsible sourcing strategy, which places a clear focus on a shared fundamental approach. We are convinced that we can only establish sustainable procurement practices if every single decision-maker in the global supply chains acts in the spirit of sustainability. This requires a fundamental recognition of this responsibility, as well as adopting the right attitude and building skills and knowledge.