Metrics

Water and water intensity

WACKER includes all fully consolidated companies when recording its various water volumes. Reporting takes all relevant sites into account. Data is collected at the sites on the basis of local legal requirements, enabling data to be used both for the Group’s environmental reporting and for site-specific official reporting obligations. Local regulatory requirements determine whether the data is measured, calculated or estimated, though this data is preferably measured or calculated using established methods. If this is not technically feasible or possible due to local circumstances, we estimate the data on the basis of established extrapolation methods and empirical values. If methodological or systematic changes have to be made to data collection, the affected values are adjusted retroactively. However, this was not necessary for the previous year.

Data is collected on a site-specific basis using our groupwide reporting tool and is verified both at site level and by the Group Coordinator for the Environment. The data is reviewed externally by the relevant authorities.

The following table shows all the water metrics relevant to WACKER.

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Water and water intensity

2025

2024

Change
in %

Water withdrawal¹ (million m³)

205

229

-10

Cooling water volume (million m³)

185

212

-13

Wastewater volume (million m³)

13.1

12.6

Water consumption (million m³)²

4.9

5.3

-8

Of which water consumption in water risk zones including zones with high water stress (million m³)

0.5

0.3

Total amount of water recycled and reused (million m³)

485

559

-13

Water intensity³ (total water consumption/net revenue) (thousand m³/€ million)

0.9

0.9

–

¹	Additional water is withdrawn at our Burghausen site as part of the services it offers other companies at the plant and is returned to the water circuit as cooling water or wastewater. These volumes are not part of the indicators above.
²	Information on water consumption is not calculated by simple subtraction, but is based on the individual sites’ consumption-related calculations.
³	The water intensity is calculated as the ratio of total water consumption of all production sites to net Group sales as shown in the consolidated financial statements.

Over 90 percent of the water withdrawn is used as cooling water and then returned to the water circuit again. Only a small percentage is actually consumed, e.g. as part of our products. Production-related wastewater is either returned to legally admissible wastewater disposal or returned to the water circuit through our own wastewater-purification systems. These systems and the purified wastewater are monitored according to legal regulations applicable locally and are also monitored regularly by the authorities.