Responsibility

Governance & Compliance

Whistleblower System

Our actions towards colleagues, business partners, shareholders and the public are characterized by integrity and responsibility. Evonik will not tolerate any violations of applicable laws or the Evonik Code of Conduct and other internal policies. Evonik considers that in today's business world, respecting the law is essential for the sustained national and international success of a company.

Each employee is obliged to report any potential or actual violations of the Code of Conduct, whether his own or that of colleagues, to the relevant department or the compliance officer without delay. In order to detect possible violations, the electronic whistleblowing system operated by Business Keeper Management Systems exists throughout the Group in addition to the internal reporting channels (written by email or letter, telephone or direct notification to the responsible Compliance Officer).

Both employees and external stakeholders, such as business partners and their employees or neighbors of our sites, have the opportunity to report (potential) compliance violations to Evonik with the help of the whistleblower system available in 20 languages. Notices can be made on all important compliance issues and are automatically forwarded by the system to the responsible body in the company for processing.

The whistleblower system is certified according to European data protection law. Protecting data and whistleblowers is top priority. The data is stored on protected servers in Germany. Due to technical safeguards neither Evonik nor the external operator are able to draw conclusions as to the identity of the whistleblower, if the whistleblower does not wish to be identified in person. The content of the reports is processed exclusively by Evonik. Neither the external operator nor third parties can view the information placed there.

Evonik takes up all indications of violations and investigates them through internal investigations. In order to protect whistleblowers, the Group Internal Investigations Policy provides for safeguards in the general procedural principles, such as the prohibition of discrimination.

Whistleblower System at Evonik

The BKMS electronic whistleblowing system can be reached via this link: