Our sustainability journey

Sustainability is one of Siegfried’s corporate values. How is this reflected in day-to-day operations?

Sustainability is a collective and cultural concern, emphasizing the need for the entire organization, every department, and each employee to not only endorse various initiatives but also internalize the value of “sustainability”. To achieve this, we established a Sustainability Board in 2021—a committee bringing together key internal stakeholders from diverse sustainability areas, including environmental experts, ethics and compliance, Health, Safety and Environment, and human resources. Reporting directly to the Board of Directors’ “Strategy & Sustainability Committee,” this board defines Siegfried’s sustainability strategy, governance, and risk management. This structure ensures the necessary focus on sustainability.

Through numerous projects across our sites, we continually aim to enhance our sustainability performance. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters have been a longstanding priority. For example, we have systematically recorded and actively managed important environmental data such as energy usage, CO₂ emissions, water consumption, and waste management across all sites. Our sustainability activities are documented annually in a comprehensive sustainability report, following the internationally recognized GRI guidelines.

What were the key achievements related to sustainability at Siegfried in 2023?

We continued along the course we set last year and moved forward with many projects to improve our sustainability performance in all areas of ESG. Our Energy Crisis team, established in 2022, continued to implement various initiatives across the Siegfried network to reduce energy consumption, achieving significant savings. We continued working toward our target to halve CO₂ emissions, adjusted for revenue by 2030. While in the past we focused only on scope 1 and 2 emissions, in 2023, we established our full scope 3 value chain footprint, enabling Siegfried to extend our efforts to include scope 3 emissions, and report this figure for the first time.

Another key focus area was the introduction of a more comprehensive supply chain integrity program to take a risk-based approach to our supplier monitoring. In addition, we strengthened our information and cybersecurity program, launched a new employer branding to position Siegfried as an employer of choice, and created the sustainability office to support our sites with sustainability data validation.

In recognition of our efforts, we maintained all our sustainability distinctions including being named a member of Dow Jones Sustainability Index S&P for the third year, and our low-risk rating by Sustainalytics and Morningstar.

What are the plans for 2024?

In 2024, we will redefine our sustainability roadmap to sharpen our focus areas and improve our data baselining with regards to water, resources and waste, to define KPIs going forward. Projects that were launched in 2023, including the supply chain integrity program and site decarbonization roadmap, will be realized.

With respect to the reduction of our CO₂ footprint, the target remains unchanged: Siegfried aims to cut CO₂ emissions (scope 1, 2 and 3) in half, adjusted for revenue by 2030. However, this requires continued efforts, both with respect to energy efficiency as well as energy sourcing, and collaboration with our suppliers and customers. Siegfried will continue to engage with customers to identify products that we can collaborate on to reduce their carbon footprint.