We accept responsibility
Sustainability is a central element in our purpose "Leading Beyond Chemistry". Evonik is the one providing innovative solutions that help to make our lives more sustainable, more healthy, and more comfortable.
As a specialty chemicals company with a presence throughout the world, Evonik sees sustainability and long-term business success as two sides of the same coin. That is reflected in the rising demand from our customers for products and services that demonstrate a good balance of economic, ecological and social factors. Sustainability has long since developed into a growth driver for Evonik.
With our innovative strength and leading technology positions, we offer our customers numerous solutions that demonstrably contribute to improved resource efficiency in applications. Examples include amino acids for animal nutrition, additives for hydraulic oils and our silica/silane system for green tire technology. We already generate 43 percent of our sales with products and solutions that have a distinctly positive sustainability profile. We aim to increase the share of sales from these Next Generation Solutions to over 50 percent by 2030.
To reduce Evonik's carbon footprint still further, we are continuously optimizing our processes along the entire value chain. We use alternative raw materials and biotechnological methods wherever this is possible and makes sense.
Sound sustainability management does not begin with our own products and production processes. Our purchasing volume has a significant impact on society and the environment. As a founding member of the industry initiative “Together for Sustainability”, we are driving forward transparency and sustainability along the supply chain.
Sustainable management and responsible action are among the cornerstones of Evonik's business model and are essential for the company's future viability. We drive our sustainability activities along the value chain in close dialog with our stakeholders: In addition to our own production processes and the products we market, we always consider our supply chain and the product benefits for our customers and their customers. We are seeing growing demand for products that strike a balance between economic, ecological and social factors. This opens up a diverse range of promising business opportunities for Evonik.
Against this background, we are systematically implementing our sustainability strategy. Key elements are the integration of sustainability into strategic management processes, a carbon price for all investments, and ambitious targets for reducing CO2 emissions and introducing global water management.
We are committed to comply with and implement numerous internationally recognized standards, initiatives and programs. We augmented them with own guidelines and principles of conduct.
We have set a measurable target for the development of our global energy consumption. It calls for reducing the absolute energy consumption (kilowatt hours) and the specific energy consumption (kilowatt hour per metric ton of product) of the Group by 5 %, respectively - compared to the base year 2020 - by 2025.
Dialogue with our stakeholders is a central part of our sustainability management. By exchanging views with our stakeholders, we understand their perceptions better and utilize this to challenge our own positions and actions.
The executive board bears overall responsibility for sustainability and all climate-related issues at Evonik. Direct responsibility is assigned to the chief human resources officer. The most important sustainability bodies are the Sustainability Circle and the Sustainability Council. The Sustainability Circle comprises representatives of functions and units that are relevant for sustainability. The Sustainability Council ensures close collaboration with the business. The executive board member responsible for sustainability chairs both the Sustainability Circle and the Sustainability Council. The co-chairperson of the Sustainability Council is the executive board member responsible for chemicals and innovation. Responsibility for sustainability management at Evonik is defined in a corporate policy.
Our sustainability strategy takes up the growth markets identified in our corporate strategy and defines areas of action geared to balanced management of economic, ecological and social factors. Sustainability has developed into a growth driver for many of our business activities.
We have set ourselves ambitious sustainability targets.
Evonik set itself a new waste target in the year under review: In the period 2021 to 2030, the specific volume of production waste is to fall by 10 percent in relation to production volume.