Principles and Goals

Sustainability has been firmly entrenched in our business processes for years. At WACKER, we aim to balance economic, ecological and social factors in everything we do. The fact that sustainability appears in two of our five strategic goals underscores its importance.

Our corporate management is involved in issues of sustainability, including the managers in charge of Environment, Health and Safety (EHS), Product Safety (PS) and Sustainability. The Executive Board members sit on the Sustainability Council and are kept informed by the Chief Compliance Officer of issues discussed by the Human Rights Committee.

The WACKER Group’s Purpose

In line with its purpose as an innovative chemical company – Our solutions make a better world for generations – WACKER makes an important contribution to improving the quality of life of people all around the world. We want to continue developing and supplying solutions that meet our own expectations – namely to add value for our customers, shareholders, employees and society, and to achieve sustainable growth.

WACKER’s Sustainability Targets

Global warming due to rising greenhouse gas emissions is a socially and economically relevant environmental factor. We want to be at the vanguard in the fight against climate change and reduce both our own emissions as a company and those of our products. The sustainability targets we have therefore set are ambitious. For example, WACKER intends to cut its absolute greenhouse gas emissions (Scopes 1 and 2) by 50 percent by 2030 relative to 2020 and to achieve net zero by 2045.

WACKER is striving to ensure that its entire product portfolio meets defined sustainability criteria by 2030. We also expect all our key suppliers to meet defined sustainability standards by 2030. During the same period, we aim to reduce by 25 percent the emissions from the upstream products (Scope 3, Categories 1 and 3) that we use. In addition, WACKER has set targets for specific water withdrawal and specific energy consumption, striving to achieve a reduction of 15 percent in both by 2030.

The targets to cut greenhouse gases are science-based, meaning they are consistent with the “1.5 °C” target of the Paris Agreement. Not only the targets for 2030 but also our aim of achieving net zero by 2045 have been validated by the independent Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

In addition, we have set ourselves diversity targets. By 2030, we would like women to hold about one in three management positions and around one in two management positions to be located outside of Germany.

Safety has top priority at WACKER. Our goal every year is to avoid experiencing any chemical accidents with missed workdays or severe plant-safety incidents.

Sustainability Strategy: SustainaBalance®

SustainaBalance® is WACKER’s holistic sustainability strategy to achieve its medium- and long-term sustainability targets. This strategy is based on three pillars designed to promote the balance between ecological, social and economic factors: Value Up, Footprint Down and Collaboration Beyond.

SustainaBalance® is directly related to the 17 goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

WACKER’s SustainaBalance® is a commitment to responsible stewardship and contributes to the implementation, in particular, of seven UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):