WACKER Publishes Sustainability Report 2019/2020

Wacker Chemie AG today published the 2019/2020 Sustainability Report
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WACKER acts responsibly and contributes to the achievement of at least seven of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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Sustainability is a core component of WACKER's business operations and one of WACKER's five strategic goals
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Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is a focus of WACKER's sustainable development
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For example, by connecting more production lines to the new steam network at WACKER's Nünchritz site, the waste heat recovery rate can be increased from over 70% in the reporting period to a maximum of 83% in the next few years; WACKER's Burger The Hausen site has modernized the gas turbines of the electricity and steam production facilities, making them more efficient and with lower emissions
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WACKER pays special attention to comprehensive environmental protection, starting from product development and factory preparation, and continues to improve production processes and save resources in the process of continuing to promote the circular economy
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WACKER SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY

WACKER implements the SustainaBalance® sustainability strategy, which aims to achieve several important goals by 2030
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WACKER is committed to seeking a balance between ecological, social and economic needs, and has formulated three specific guidelines for "increasing value", "reducing ecological footprint" and "cooperating", in order to reduce the carbon dioxide unit emissions of the entire group by 2030 Compared with 2012, it will be reduced by 1/3, and the unit energy consumption will be reduced by half compared with 2007
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WACKER insists on improving processes to improve the efficiency of water management at its production sites
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In 2020, the Group's wastewater volume has been reduced, and in the long-term comparison, the residual organic matter (with COD chemical oxygen demand as the parameter) has been significantly reduced
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The efficient wastewater treatment at the Burghausen site contributes to this
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Product Sustainability Assessment

WACKER is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, with 90% of its products making a positive contribution to sustainable development or at least no negative impact
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WACKER evaluates and refines its product portfolio according to sustainability criteria
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Here, the business units closely track the entire life cycle of products and product families, specific applications and regional differences
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WACKER uses the ECOWHEEL® assessment tool to analyze positive and negative influences in the value chain
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Business units and customers use this tool for sustainability work in order to aggregate important information about a product or industrial branch and uncover optimization potential
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The proportion of bio-based raw materials used by WACKER continued to increase during the reporting period
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One way is to replace petrochemical feedstocks with renewable feedstocks in production
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Using the Biomass Balance process, WACKER has introduced alternative product lines for key product lines that are produced from certified sustainable biomass feedstocks instead of petrochemical feedstocks
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Supplier Sustainability Performance

Sustainability of the supply chain is another focus of WACKER
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In its latest report, WACKER describes the achievements of itself and its suppliers in the "Together for Sustainability (TfS)" and EcoVadis audits
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Epidemic management

WACKER employees come from 70 countries
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, employees at WACKER production sites around the world have worked together and put in great effort to ensure that their daily work runs smoothly
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The Group has taken numerous measures to protect the health of employees, reduce the risk of infection, and flatten the infection rate
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WACKER's latest Sustainability Report also elaborated on the Group's pandemic management
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Reporting meets the core requirements of the GRI standard

To conserve resources and protect the environment, WACKER's Sustainability Report is once again published purely online
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The report complies with the Core requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards for writing sustainability reports for companies, government departments and NGOs, and includes other indicators relevant to WACKER's main sustainability work
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WACKER carried out a questionnaire survey in 2020 to identify sustainable development issues that the main target groups consider to be of great significance to WACKER.
Product safety, production line safety, compliance, transportation and storage safety, occupational safety and employee health are among the top five.
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These issues are also addressed in the WACKER Sustainability Report
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The report is available in German and English and can be read online:
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The online version is easy to browse, with interactive functions such as key indicator comparison and download, and a PDF version is also available
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The online WACKER Sustainability Report is available in German and English: (Photo: Wacker Chemie AG)

With the help of the ECOWHEEL® assessment tool, WACKER analyzes the environment-related factors in the value chain and focuses on energy, materials, water, and ecotoxicity at the core of the product life cycle
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(Schematic: Wacker Chemie AG)