The central point of contact for all questions relative to environmental issues is the “Strategic Environmental Management voestalpine AG” unit, which is also responsible for all operational environmental activities in the Steel Division.
At the Group level, this unit—together with the Management Board of voestalpine AG and the divisional environmental officers—defines strategic objectives, thematic focal points, and positions relating to policies affecting the company’s interests regarding important strategic long-term issues, such as energy and climate policy or the LCA. It also coordinates the Group’s dialogue with stakeholders about these issues, i.e., it represents the Group’s interests at the national and European level vis-à-vis the political arena, advocacy and special interest groups, and professional and industry-specific organizations.
At the same time, Strategic Environmental Management coordinates the flow and exchange of information in the Group within the framework of the “Network Environment” that consists of Group representatives and the environmental officers of the Special Steel, Metal Engineering, and Metal Forming Divisions and voestalpine’s CR manager. In addition to the ongoing event-related sharing of information, this network meets quarterly, thus ensuring consistent development and implementation of measures relevant to environmental issues throughout the entire Group (for example, changes in the legal situation, standards, or similar regulations).
Furthermore, the establishment of the annual “voestalpine Environment Day,” which the Management Board actively participates in, has created an event that is directed toward management and staff responsible for operations from very different areas (e.g., production, research and development, communications, legal, sales), in other words toward participants from beyond the actual environmental sector. The objective is, on one hand, to inform voestalpine management about ecological topics that are of importance for the Group and the definition of concrete, associated challenges and possible actions for the company. On the other, the inclusion of external experts, for example from NGOs and universities, makes dialogue and the sharing of ideas a top priority. Up to now, the “voestalpine Environment Day” dealt with questions associated with European and national energy and climate topics and the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), for example.
The objective presented in the last CR Report of creating a comprehensive central environmental database of all of the Group’s production companies was achieved, and the “SoFi” software has been implemented and rolled out. This tool is now an established part of everyday practice and provides standardized collection, analysis, and substantive evaluation of environmental data based on aggregated, uniform indicators. The first collection of environmental data was undertaken in the 2015 calendar year. It is the basis for the indicators presented in this CR Report.
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