Coal
voestalpine considers as its stakeholders both those groups that are impacted financially by the company’s business activities or who have another justified interest in its performance and those groups whose actions and decisions impact the business activities of voestalpine.
The most important stakeholder groups have been defined by the Corporate Responsibility Steering Committee. This body is comprised of the heads of the Group units Environment, Research and Development, Legal, Communications, Human Resources, International Business Relations, and Investor Relations. Important criteria for the incorporation of individual stakeholder groups include statutory framework conditions, the frequency and the main areas of collaboration, business relationships, but also the physical proximity to the locations.
voestalpine is in regular contact with its stakeholders by way of its Management Board, its executives, and individual employees in the specialist departments. Beyond the scope of day-to-day business, voestalpine also maintains this dialogue at conferences, specialist conferences and expert roundtables, trade fairs and university events, analyst and investor meetings, through employee surveys and appraisal dialogues as well as within the scope of advocacy and special interest groups, industry associations, and various platforms.
The following summarizes how structured contact between voestalpine and representatives of various stakeholder groups takes place.
Employees
The roughly 48,000 employees of the four divisions represent a central stakeholder group. Management, including the Management Board, is in regular contact to employees, utilizing events such as the so-called Steel Evenings, institutionalized formats such as employee surveys and appraisal dialogues as well as informal everyday contact.
The next employee survey regarding job satisfaction will take place in the fall of 2016. As was the case in past surveys, besides responding to a standardized questionnaire, employees can also make suggestions or offer criticisms. The results are summarized in a structured format, and potential measures to be taken are developed and implemented to the greatest extent possible.
Customers and suppliers
Open dialogue and close collaboration with customers and suppliers are cornerstones of voestalpine’s success. Their needs and requirements provide guidance to the Group for its research and development of innovative products.
In recent years, voestalpine has deepened the traditionally very close collaboration and sharing of information with customers and suppliers with regard to corporate responsibility. The company can be successful in fulfilling the growing requirements of sustainable management and development along the entire value and supply chain only through dialogue and cooperation. voestalpine is making every effort to consistently increase transparency throughout the supply chain and to improve knowledge about the origin of raw materials and other materials used and to also increase awareness on this subject in its direct sphere of influence (in this regard, see the Chapters “Sustainable Supply Chain Management” and “Life Cycle Assessment”). The minimum requirements for suppliers and business partners are set forth in the Code of Conduct, which is part of voestalpine’s terms and conditions for suppliers.
Analysts and investors
For voestalpine as an exchange-listed company, investors and analysts are important dialogue partners as they are equity holders, investors, and opinion leaders on the capital markets. The Chairman of the Management Board, the other members of the Management Board, and the Investor Relations Department are in close contact with these stakeholders, for example, at investor conferences, roadshows, or during plant tours. At regular intervals, voestalpine holds a “Capital Markets Day” (CMD) in order to provide concentrated information to analysts and institutional investors about the newest developments and trends. The most recent CMD focused on aerospace and was held during the Farnborough International Airshow near London.
voestalpine provides information to private shareholders through various formats that range from events, such as the Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting and investor fairs to annual and quarterly reports and personal contact.
Research institutions and universities
As described in the Chapter “Research and development,” voestalpine is working very closely with universities and research institutions and also supports endowed professorships. In the area of application-oriented fundamental research, voestalpine relies on the expertise and resources of partners in the sciences, such as universities, research institutes, competence centers, and Christian Doppler Laboratories.
NGOs, advocacy and special interest groups, and platforms
Experts from voestalpine are collaborating in numerous working groups and in committees and bodies of industrial and professional associations, such as, the World Steel Association, EUROFER, the German Steel Institute (VDEh), ESTEP (European Steel Technology Platform), and ASMET (Austrian Society for Metallurgy and Materials) on topics like LCA, recycling, climate change, and sustainability reporting.
These organizations invite voestalpine to provide concrete statements during consultations, for instance, most recently with regard to the EU Directive on Non-Financial Reporting.
Executives with specialist knowledge or local responsibility are in direct contact with NGOs and representatives of civil society.
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