Systematically promoting sustainability
Corinna Schittenhelm, Chief Human Resources Officer and responsible for sustainability, and Thomas Fußhöller, Head of Sustainability, talk about the importance of sustainable management for the company.
2020 was an eventful year in many ways – the coronavirus pandemic required a new level of responsible behavior. What role does sustainability play for the Schaeffler Group?
Corinna Schittenhelm: Besides exposing social, geopolitical and macroeconomic interdependencies, the coronavirus pandemic also added to the complexity of challenges we have faced in the past year. Most importantly, we have kept our focus on sustainability and especially on climate protection measures. Our stakeholders support this approach, particularly when it comes to the ESG criteria regarding environment, social and governance. Sustainability is part of the Schaeffler Group’s DNA and a requirement for future growth.
Sustainability is part of the Schaeffler Group’s DNA and a requirement for future growth.
Corinna Schittenhelm
Chief Human Resources Officer and responsible for sustainability
Thomas Fußhöller: Sustainability is a key priority of the Roadmap 2025. The Climate Neutrality, Sustainable Sites, and Reporting & Ratings initiatives were launched in 2020 as part of the execution program. In this way, we were able to bundle existing activities and clearly formulate our targets.
The company defined concrete sustainability targets in 2019. What measures were achieved and what progress was made in 2020?
Thomas Fußhöller: The Sustainability Committee, which consists of members of the Executive Board and employees of the first management level, adopted seven sustainability targets. Since 2020, the purchased power of all German production sites has come from 100 % renewable sources. The program will be rolled out at all of our plants worldwide by 2024. We also follow a systematic approach to increase energy efficiency. 100 measures were implemented at our plants in 2020, leading to improvements of more than 27 gigawatt hours in the production process. We have committed ourselves to cumulated annual efficiency gains of 100 gigawatt hours until 2024.
We have committed ourselves to cumulated annual efficiency gains of 100 gigawatt hours until 2024.
Thomas Fußhöller
Head of Sustainability
Corinna Schittenhelm: It can be surely assumed that the availability of freshwater will continue to decline on a global basis as a result of climate change. Here, too, we have committed ourselves to systematically reduce water usage over the next ten years. And our efforts are showing results. The Schaeffler Group managed to further improve its performance in key sustainability ratings in 2020. We are proud of the fact that we were able to improve our CDP climate rating from “D” to “A-” in just two years. It is worth noting that we achieved this goal one year earlier than originally planned.
We are proud of the fact that we were able to improve our CDP climate rating from “D” to “A-” in just two years.
Corinna Schittenhelm
Chief Human Resources Officer and responsible for sustainability
Just like climate protection, the company’s social responsibility takes key priority – in what ways will Schaeffler continue to accept this responsibility in the future?
Corinna Schittenhelm: Our employees are key pillars of the Schaeffler Group’s success, which is why improving occupational health and safety on a continuous basis is a top priority for us. We have therefore set ourselves the target of reducing the accident rate by an average of 10 % every year until 2024. Thanks to targeted measures, the annual reduction target was achieved for the fourth time in a row in 2020.
Thomas Fußhöller: We also view the advancement and continuing professional development of the workforce as a key factor in our efforts to successfully drive the transformation in our industries. Digital tools and their integration into day-to-day work are especially important and widely used, particularly in times of social distancing. For example, digitalization has allowed us to offer more than 100 of our trainings live and online. We will also offer our employees a web-based sustainability training in 2021.
Continuing professional development is key, which is why we will be offering our employees a sustainability training in 2021.
Thomas Fußhöller
Head of Sustainability
Corinna Schittenhelm: Our sustainability report provides an insight into the focus of our efforts in 2020 and how the Schaeffler Group developed in terms of key figures and targets. In the magazine, we present global key challenges that had a major impact on our activities in 2020. More detailed information is published in our online report.