Strategy and Governance
As part of our circular economy strategy, which is part of our sustainability strategy, we strive to reduce fossil raw materials and avoid waste. We have identified three topic areas along the global value chain of our products in this respect. WACKER is able to make a significant contribution to these topics:
Renewable raw materials – upstream value chain
WACKER primarily uses fossil raw materials at present to manufacture its products. Our long-term goal is to increasingly use renewable raw materials based on biomass, CO2 or recyclable materials to replace fossil carbon in our products. We are also working on replacing fossil reducing agents with non-fossil ones in silicon production. In the case of minerals, we are focusing our efforts on recycling instead of mining new ones. Our Corporate Procurement department is responsible for implementation, and our suppliers – central stakeholders – are among those parties with which it communicates closely on this topic.
Closed and efficient production cycles – own operations
WACKER’s product development and plant design specifically focus on optimizing production processes aimed at highly integrated material loops (integrated production system) to conserve resources and reduce waste. Material loops are closed and byproducts at another point are returned to production. This enables us to reduce and avoid energy, resource consumption, emissions and waste, and to integrate the circular economy into our production processes. The Group’s production departments are responsible for implementation. The heads of the respective sites communicate closely with the local communities, which are key stakeholders.
Closed material cycles – downstream value chain
WACKER’s products are used in many different fields of application. Often, end products contain only a small amount of our own products. That is why we aim to define suitable policies that take account of individual products or applications and which achieve greater circularity. This includes both the development of long-lasting products and reusability or (bio)degradation at the end of the product life cycle. There is great potential in the development of solutions that enable circular products for our customers. By staying in constant contact with customers and performing market analyses, we take account of the relevant stakeholders.
The management of resource inflows and outflows is part of the Group regulation described in the “General disclosures on environmental standards” section.
We did not set ourselves any specific target regarding resource inflows and outflows in the current reporting year. This is due, on the one hand, to the limited availability of renewable raw materials. On the other, there are major regional and product-specific differences in terms of resource outflows.
Nevertheless, we are taking action in this area in line with our strategy.
