Strategy and Governance
WACKER focuses on responsibility, integrity, compliance with legal and regulatory standards, and sustainability to balance economic, environmental and social factors. Our purpose is to develop and offer solutions that contribute worldwide to improving quality of life. Business success requires all employees to conduct themselves ethically, legally and with integrity.
Our corporate values serve as a guide for our business conduct and encapsulate what WACKER stands for:
- Integrity & Example
- Performance & Passion
- Vision & Openness
- Collaboration & Appreciation
These values create the framework for the WACKER Code of Conduct, which describes our ethical principles for all our employees around the world and must be complied with. These values should be actively practiced by all employees, regardless of department, function, region or hierarchy level. Furthermore, we give our Code of Conduct to customers, business partners and stakeholders as a guide along with our Supplier Code of Conduct.
Our compliance management system is designed to
- Strengthen and encourage compliant conduct,
- Prevent or minimize compliance violations,
- Identify risks for possible infringements,
- Introduce preventative measures, and
- In the event that individuals act independently against clear rules to commit violations, uncover such violations, stop them and prevent them from happening in the future.
In line with a groupwide directive, our Distribution Management unit works with our Legal and Corporate Development departments to conduct regular assessments of the risk factors concerned and assess distributors. These risk factors include the country assessment provided by the World Corruption Index and the Compliance regulations of distributors. The criteria are regularly reviewed and updated to reflect the latest best practice and industry standards. Together with our Legal and Corporate Development departments, Distribution Management organizes mandatory compliance training if the assessment findings indicate that such training is necessary.
By way of support, we provide a wealth of information on our intranet and offer interactive online training courses. Successful completion of these training courses is mandatory and monitored by the personnel department.
Responsibility for implementing the Code of Conduct lies with the president and CEO. The Group Chief Compliance Officer reports directly to the president and CEO, regularly providing information on relevant incidents or suspected cases. The full Executive Board is informed on a quarterly basis of any relevant compliance issues and the Supervisory Board is informed via its Audit Committee meetings, which take place four times a year, about all compliance incidents and actions taken.
