Case study: How Kemira creates economic value for its stakeholders
Kemira is a global leader in sustainable chemical solutions for water intensive industries, providing best suited products and expertise to improve its customers’ product quality, process and resource efficiency. Kemira generates economic value from expertise, products and sustainable solutions and distributes the generated economic value to its various stakeholders, including suppliers and service providers through payments for raw materials and services, employees through compensation and benefits, capital providers through dividends and interest payments, the public sector through taxes, and society through local community projects, sponsorship and donations.
This case study is based on the 2021 Sustainability Report by Kemira, prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards, that can be found at this link. Through all case studies we aim to demonstrate what CSR/ ESG/ sustainability reporting done responsibly means. Essentially, it means: a) identifying a company’s most important impacts on the environment, economy and society, and b) measuring, managing and changing.
Creating, through its business operations, long term, sustainable value for all its stakeholders, is a top priority for Kemira. Tweet This! In order to create economic value for its stakeholders Kemira took action to:
- create economic value for employees
- create economic value for suppliers
- create economic value for investors and lenders
- create economic value for the government and the public sector
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With this case study you will see:
- Which are the most important impacts (material issues) Kemira has identified;
- How Kemira proceeded with stakeholder engagement, and
- What actions were taken by Kemira to create economic value for its stakeholders
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What are the material issues the company has identified?
In its 2021 Sustainability Report Kemira identified a range of material issues, such as supporting customers to become more sustainable, water and wastewater, use of renewable and biobased materials, health and safety, climate and renewable energy. Among these, creating economic value for its stakeholders stands out as a key material issue for Kemira.
Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:
Stakeholders must be consulted in the process s of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.
Key stakeholder groups Kemira engages with:
| Stakeholder Group | Method of engagement |
| Customers
| · Direct customer contacts · Customer webinars, events and newsletters · Customer satisfaction measure · Key drivers in customer satisfaction are the technical service, speed and proactivity, as well as Kemira’s ability to offer new and sustainable solutions |
| Shareholders and lenders
| · Regulatory financial communications: financial reporting and stock exchange communication · Regular events like roadshows, conference calls and one-to-one meetings |
| Employees | · Performance management and development process · Regular Town hall meetings globally · Co-operation with employee representatives · Continuous listening and employee feedback · Ethics and Compliance hotline and trainings · Local wellbeing programmes in all regions |
| Suppliers | · Working closely with key suppliers to help them meet Kemira’s sustainability performance expectations, and take corrective actions if needed |
| Local communities
| · Dialogue and collaboration with local communities at major sites to ensure Kemira understands and addresses their concerns · Collaboration with schools and universities |
| Regulatory bodies, trade associations, decision makers and opinion leaders | · Memberships in industrial trade associations · Subject-specific dialogue with regulatory bodies on national and EU level |
How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues
To identify and prioritise material topics Kemira engaged with its stakeholders through questionnaires and in-depth interviews with pre-identified key internal and external stakeholders, including investors, customers and Kemira employees and top management.
What actions were taken by Kemira to create economic value for its stakeholders?
In its 2021 Sustainability Report Kemira reports that it took the following actions for creating economic value for its stakeholders:
- Creating economic value for employees
- In 2021, Kemira paid EUR 371 million for employee wages and benefits.
- Creating economic value for suppliers
- In 2021, Kemira paid EUR 1922 million to suppliers of raw materials, goods and services.
- Creating economic value for investors and lenders
- In 2021, Kemira paid EUR 127 million in dividends, interests paid and financial expenses.
- Creating economic value for the government and the public sector
- In 2021, Kemira paid EUR 44 million in corporate income taxes.
Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?
The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed
Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed corresponds to:
- Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Targets: 8.1, 8.2
- Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- Targets: 9.1, 9.4, 9.5
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References:
This case study is based on published information by Kemira, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:
https://mb.cision.com/Public/19578/3509808/b1b345a63810a18b.pdf
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