For Siemens, sustainability is not just the latest buzz word. The company has made the three areas of sustainable development – environment, business and society – the cornerstones of its operations.
Siemens’s sustainability goals reflect the company’s major challenges. They have been developed and defined in joint efforts with the relevant departments.
Sustainability global goals
– Help customers reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 300M illion tonnes
– Grow Environmental Portfolio revenue to 40 billion euro
– Improve carbon dioxide efficiency by 20%
– Increase water efficiency by 20%
When it comes to the environment, Siemens provides innovative products and solutions to improve both its own eco-balance and that of its customers and suppliers. In business, it is focusing on long-term value creation. And to ensure sustainable development in society as a whole, the company is investing in human capital and adhering to the principles of good citizenship in all communities where it is active.
Although decisions in these areas are not always free of conflicting interests, Siemens aims to make them all transparent and to find the best solutions possible.
The responsible use of natural resources, targeted investments in future-oriented technologies that support profitable growth while offering customers competitive advantages, and a company ethic that goes beyond mere compliance with the law and places integrity at the centre of business operations – these are the factors enabling Siemens to drive sustainable development and lay the basis for its successful future.
Sustainability lies at the core of company values
As Siemens history shows, its understanding of sustainability is closely linked to company values – responsible, excellent and innovative. From the very first day, Werner von Siemens insisted that his company fulfill its responsibilities to its employees, society and nature. Achieving excellence, capturing leading positions in the markets of tomorrow and developing innovative technologies that help ensure the future viability of modern civilisation – these have always been Siemens’s vision and challenge.
Sustainability Programme 2011
All actions at Siemens are governed by the fundamental resolve to act responsibly on behalf of future generations to ensure economic, environmental and social progress. Siemens’s sustainability activities are an essential factor in achieving its objectives to generate profitable growth and create long-term value for its stakeholders.
Siemens regularly identifies sustainability topics based on their importance for the company and its stakeholders, and prioritise them on the principle of materiality. These topics are the basis of Siemens’s Sustainability Programme and are subsequently implemented by its specialist functions, Sectors and Regions. The goals and activities of the Sustainability Programme are focused on the three fields Business opportunities, Walk the talk and Stakeholder dialogue. For objective perspectives on the sustainability challenges and performance, Siemens formed the Sustainability Advisory Board, a body consisting of nine independent individuals from science and industry who represent a variety of disciplines and who hail from different continents.
Materiality portfolio
Siemens’s materiality portfolio highlights key sustainability topics and their importance for the company and its stakeholders. The portfolio is prepared annually in a process that closely integrates analyses of general trends, its orientation to megatrends and intensive dialogues with stakeholders. During fiscal 2010, Siemens consulted more than 30 external stakeholders and experts from science, industry, politics, non-governmental organisations and consultancies. Internal working groups combined the outcomes of these dialogues with the assessments of specialist functions and the results were then discussed with the Sustainability Board and the Siemens Sustainability Advisory Board. The result is the 2011 materiality portfolio which defines Siemens’s sustainability roadmap for the current fiscal year.
The Environmental Programme, introduced to reduce Siemens’s carbon footprint and boost its resource and energy efficiency, exemplifies what the firm is doing to take advantage of opportunities. Using high-efficiency technology in its own manufacturing operations not only plays an important role in Siemens’s risk management by helping it hedge against rising energy costs, but also enables it to showcase our capabilities to customers and demonstrate what Siemens can achieve with our solutions.
Siemens Austria CEO Wolfgang Hesoun: ”Sustainability is the basis for our business activities – with the goal of guaranteeing long-term value creation through responsible interaction with people and the environment. Our economic success is founded on innovative products and solutions. These help our customers to achieve their business goals while at the same time facing global challenges such as demographic change, urbanisation, climate change and resource scarcity. We pursue ambitious goals with regard to resource efficiency and environmental protection. We view our employees as our most valuable capital and ensure their long-term development. We invest in job security and diversity, such as in promoting our trainees with special needs, because we believe in a company culture of high integrity. We work very closely with our suppliers to integrate our sustainability principles into all relevant business processes. We promote education, social responsibility, art and culture in the places we do business in order to make an important contribution to our society as a corporate citizen. Innovation is the key to success. For this reason, we place an emphasis on this valuable and important work of building the future in the CEE region as well. We are expanding our environmental portfolio with products and solutions that contribute to lowering greenhouse gas emissions as well as environmental technologies for maintaining air and water purity. The largest single contributions to CO2 savings were achieved in 2010 by high-efficiency combined cycle power plants, wind power plants, the renovation of older power plants, energy-efficient lighting and environmentally-friendly trains. Additional growth drivers in the future will include smart grids and their key components. As the headquarters for the region of Central and Eastern Europe, or CEE, our focus naturally lies on this group of countries. The CEE region, which offers high medium- and long-term growth potential and where we have deep historical roots, is of major importance to our business.”