voestalpine adopted a Corporate Responsibility Strategy (CRS) in 2018 in order to consciously and consistently underscore the significance of sustainability to all its decisions and actions. Its Corporate Development unit has further refined the CRS in cooperation with the divisions’ strategy units as well as the relevant specialist departments. In 2021, the revised version of the CRS was adopted as the Group’s Sustainability Strategy in close coordination with both the Management Board and the Supervisory Board of voestalpine AG. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provided the basic framework for the development of the Strategy.
As an integrative component of the Group’s corporate strategy, sustainability as a concept is operationalized individually at the level of each division, business segment, and function. This takes the topic’s growing significance to both internal and external stakeholders into account. The Sustainability Strategy is conceived as a wholly integrated roadmap based on a best-in-class approach.
Increasing focus on sustainability
By laying out its Sustainability Strategy, voestalpine also signaled that sustainability as an issue is becoming increasingly important to financial and capital markets alike. The ongoing development of the legal framework was considered as much as were changing market and competitive factors. Strategic principles and objectives were fleshed out at the Group level for every sphere of action.
The Strategy is designed to be comprehensive and thus encompasses three pillars: the Economy, the Environment, and Society. It is designed to be put into practice in voestalpine’s processes and business activities as well as organizationally. Stakeholder management serves to ensure that the Strategy and its progress are communicated both internally and externally.
The following figure presents the Sustainability Strategy’s core elements and its integration into the Group’s corporate strategy.
Profitability and shareholder value are key to the long-term performance of a listed entity such as voestalpine. As far as risk management, resilience, and future viability are concerned, however, the Sustainability Strategy makes clear that two other key elements—the environment and society—must also be given very high priority and managed accordingly.
As far as the processes are concerned, the focus is on the contributions that both the internal processes and the supply chain make to the achievement of the SDGs and the company’s sustainability targets. Sustainable business activity focuses on developing innovative products for and with customers and on pushing the concept of the circular economy, also known as “circularity.” The safety and health of our employees, their training and continuing professional development (CPD) as well as a respectful corporate culture also are material elements of sustainable organizations.
The most recent crises have increased our awareness of the fact that these areas require determined action. This also applies to the climate crisis and other environmental, social, or economic force fields. voestalpine’s Sustainability Strategy prescribes which spheres of action are decisive to the company’s sustainable performance.