Organization
Management Structures
Wacker Chemie AG’s four-member Executive Board oversees the Group’s strategies, resources, infrastructure and organizational structure. Below the Executive Board, which is highest decision-making authority, there are various committees whose membership spans several organizational sectors and legal entities. These committees ensure that corporate strategies are implemented groupwide.
Coordinating Sustainability at WACKER
The Group Leadership Team (GLT) discusses strategically important topics, analyzes possible trends affecting markets and our competitors, and discusses key topics not directly connected with day-to-day business. This also includes health and safety issues. The GLT comprises the Executive Board, business-division presidents and certain corporate-department heads.
The Executive Board has convened a Sustainability Council to monitor and coordinate the sustainability strategy. Its members, who are drawn from the business divisions and corporate departments, rate the company’s sustainability performance. The Sustainability Council coordinates measures across different departments and reviews the progress made.
The main forums for environment, health, safety (EHS) and product safety (PS) are the annual Corporate Environment, Health, Safety & Product Safety (EHS & PS) Meetings and EHS & PS Strategy Meetings, led by the Executive Board member responsible for EHS & PS.
Personnel policies are dealt with monthly in the HR Strategy Meeting, while employee health is addressed once a year by the Health Promotion Steering Committee – both are chaired by WACKER’s personnel director.
The Raw Materials Conference and the WOS (Wacker Operating System) Conference focus on the Group’s productivity projects and goals. The Group Innovation Meeting deals with innovation strategies and projects.
At the operational level, dedicated units such as the corporate and divisional Sustainability departments, HR and Procurement & Logistics are responsible for managing sustainability issues. In addition, special functions are in place to manage individual issues such as compliance, EHS & PS, and human rights.
Personnel Responsibility
Our compliance organization focuses on compliance with legal requirements and internal company regulations. The Chief Compliance Officer supervises and supports a network of regional compliance officers.
Responsibility for the environment, health, safety, trade compliance, hazardous materials and product safety lies with the Group coordinators, who report directly to the Executive Board and define groupwide standards in the shape of goals and processes. Alongside the Group coordinators, WACKER has legally mandated officers for managing specific areas in the respective regions (for example, in Germany, there are incidents officers as well as liaison officers for disabled staff).
Occupational and plant safety are vitally important for WACKER. That is why WACKER defines safety targets for its executives in Germany (in upper and middle management) during its annual target-setting process. These are personal goals (mandatory mostly for executives in production-related areas) and are incorporated into performance assessments.
The Executive Board has appointed a Human Rights Officer, who plays a key role in elaborating and updating the company’s human rights strategy, risk management system, general declaration and reporting system. The Human Rights Officer also advises the units in question and proposes corrective action. In exercising these functions, the Human Rights Officer is independent and not bound by any instructions.
Integrated Management System
We control operational processes via our integrated management system (IMS). This system defines uniform standards for quality, energy, environmental protection, and health and safety across the Group. We have our Group management system certified by an international certification organization to ensure its compliance with ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment) and ISO 50001 (energy). In the year under review, Wacker Chemicals Norway AS, Kyrksæterøra (Holla), Norway, was certified to ISO 50001 for the first time. We align our processes and standards relating to occupational health and safety with the international ISO 45001 standard. Our site in Jincheon, South Korea, has been certified to this standard.
Our Group certification program helps us adhere to statutory and customer-related requirements and to our own corporate standards at all of our sites. Almost every one of our production sites is included in the ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environment) Group certificates. Not included are: Wacker Biotech B.V., Amsterdam, Netherlands; Wacker Biotech US Inc., San Diego, California, USA; Wacker Biotech GmbH, Halle and Jena, Germany; and Wacker Dymatic Silicones (Shunde) Co., Ltd. at its Foshan City and Zhangjiagang City sites, China, for both of which it has its own certificate. There are corresponding single certificates for the Tsukuba site of Wacker Asahi Kasei Silicone Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan for compliance with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Our new production sites in Panagarh, India, and Shandong, China as well as ADL BIOPHARMA, S.L.U. in León, Spain, which we acquired in the year under review, will be included in the Group standards in coming years. ADL BIOPHARMA, S.L.U., León, Spain, has had its own ISO 50001 certificate since March 2023.
The WACKER SILICONES division has held additional certificates for conformity with automotive standard IATF 16949 since 2022 for the production of RTV silicone rubbers at its sites in Burghausen, Germany, and Zhangjiagang, China. In the year under review, the WACKER POLYSILICON division was successfully audited to this standard for the first time at its sites in Burghausen, Germany, and Charleston, Tennessee, USA. Further IATF certification is planned in Jincheon, South Korea, and Plzeň, Czech Republic. A TISAX® assessment to review information security for the automotive industry was also carried out in the reporting year.
Aside from these traditional management standards and the IATF 16949 automotive standard, WACKER has many individual products certified to the EFfCI GMP (cosmetics) and FSSC 22000 (food) standards. For example, our silicone-producing facilities in Burghausen and Nünchritz (Germany), Adrian, Michigan (USA), Jandira (Brazil) and Zhangjiagang (China), Wacker Metroark Chemicals, (West Bengal, India), and Tsukuba (Japan) have all been certified to the EFfCI cosmetics standard. As a result, these seven sites also meet the requirements of the ISO 22716 standard for the cosmetics industry. The sites in Burghausen and Nünchritz, Germany, and the sites in Eddyville, USA, in Nanjing, China, and in León, Spain, are all certified to the FSSC 22000 food standard. Certifying our products according to Islamic and Jewish dietary standards (halal and kosher) is becoming increasingly relevant.
Our mass-balance products are certified to the REDcert2 standard for the chemical industry. These products make a key contribution to sustainability since we manufacture them without fossil raw materials. As a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), which promotes sustainable palm-oil cultivation methods, we also have our products at the sites in Burghausen and Nünchritz, Germany, and in Jandira, Brazil, and Tsukuba, Japan, audited against the RSPO Supply Chain Certification Standard 2020. Our HDK® is licensed in accordance with the requirements of the V-Label, the European Vegetarian Union’s standardized seal of approval for vegetarian and vegan products and services. All certificates are available for download at:
For more details about resource-efficient production and sustainable products, please refer to the section in the combined management report entitled Further Information on R&D, Employees, Procurement and Logistics.
Controlling Instruments
At WACKER, 23 groupwide regulations govern topics of overarching significance for the company. They concern management, organization and collaboration, law and compliance, strategy and business processes as well as financing, controlling, accounting, taxes, and information security. Numerous other controlled documents regulate processes for environmental and health protection, plant and occupational safety, product safety and quality, at a Group, regional, site- and department-specific level.
We use our sustainability reporting system (SPIRIT) to record environmentally relevant and safety-related events, to plan and document internal and external audits and reviews and to coordinate the implementation of measures as part of our Integrated Management System (IMS).
Productivity Programs
High productivity is a key factor in WACKER’s success. WACKER boosts productivity along the entire supply chain via its Wacker Operating System (WOS) program. Our goal is to continue to reduce specific operating costs and CO2 emissions every year. WOS results are regularly reported to the Executive Board. In recent years, we have worked through well over 1000 projects relating to our operating activities and corporate departments. The focus of WOS was on improving our
- Plant utilization levels
- Specific energy consumption
- Raw-material yields
- Labor productivity
- Specific maintenance costs
- Carbon footprint
Risk and Compliance Management
Risk and compliance management are an integral part of corporate management at WACKER. As a global company, we are exposed to numerous risks directly attributable to our operational activities. Starting from an acceptable overall level of risk, the Executive Board decides which risks we should take to seize the opportunities available to the company.
We refer you to the Risk Management Report for a detailed description of corporate risk management and compliance management.
Management Report, Risk Management Report
Management Report, Opportunities Report
Data Protection
We gather and process personal data of our employees and all external parties with whom we are in contact in compliance with data protection regulations and with the sole aim of meeting the intended purposes.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides a uniform basis for implementing privacy law throughout the EU and is directly applicable in all member states.
WACKER employees who collect, use or process personal data must always ask themselves whether this data is actually needed and has to be stored and, if so, for how long. All employees must ensure that no infringements of privacy law occur. Even before the GDPR took effect, we had introduced mechanisms to ensure compliance with existing data protection legislation.
Our employees undergo mandatory online training on data protection. We provide additional individual training in departments that are particularly affected. Our Compliance Regulation now contains a supplement that describes the main aspects of the GDPR.
Information about the GDPR is available on our website and intranet. We use a film, which can be viewed on our intranet, to sensitize employees groupwide about the proper conduct to adopt when dealing with internal or external inquiries related to data protection.
In addition to that, we have linked the topic of data protection to our whistleblower hotline. Employees as well as people from outside the company can address any questions or complaints they have in this regard directly to the responsible officers at WACKER.
There were no justified complaints relating to the violation of customers’ privacy or the loss of customer data during the reporting period.
Customer Management
Management Report, Further Information (Procurement & Logistics, Production, Sales and Marketing)
