What are the material issues the company has identified? 

In its 2019 Sustainability Report EEW identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, emissions, fair business/compliance, extraction and provision of energy. Among these, promoting responsible procurement stands out as a key material issue for EEW.

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:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process 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 EEW engages with:

Stakeholder Group

Employees (Employees and managers at EEW as well as potential employees on the labour market)

Society (NGOs, local residents and citizens’ initiatives in the region)

Customers (Existing and potential business customers, new prospects in all markets relevant to EEW)

Economy (Banks, business partners, market participants, industry associations, universities and science)

Policy (Political players at the local authority, state, national and EU levels)

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics EEW surveyed customers, local suppliers, and representatives from local authorities, politics, associations and trade unions. The individuals selected represented a cross-section of EEW’s stakeholder universe and, in telephone interviews, provided a qualitative assessment of the topics. In addition, quantitative results were collected via a digital evaluation form.

What actions were taken by EEW to promote responsible procurement?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report EEW reports that it took the following actions for promoting responsible procurement:

• Promoting compliance
• EEW works together with its suppliers on the basis of specific norms and guidelines set out in the respective contracts. An integral element of tenders and all contracts is the principles of responsible procurement, which are summarised in a supplier code of conduct. All business partners and suppliers are obligated to comply with these criteria and the relevant laws of the countries where they operate. The principles relate to social standards, including the recognition of human rights and the assurance of appropriate working conditions for employees. They also contain environmental standards in order to minimise environmental impacts. The third main emphasis is on governance standards, meaning the application of strong ethical and moral business principles. If a supplier does not adhere to EEW’s principles, EEW expects the supplier to take corrective action and reserves the right to terminate contracts if the suppliers cannot prove that they are complying with the supplier code of conduct. Currently, the rate of recognition by suppliers is 100 per cent.

• Assessing suppliers
• Through numerous measures, EEW wants to make sure that suppliers in its plants comply with occupational safety and health protection. A precondition for approval as a supplier is a positive self-assessment on the topics of occupational health and safety and environmental protection. When a contract is awarded, only those contractors who have successfully completed an online test on safe working behaviour may receive access to EEW’s With the help of an instructional film, EEW also familiarises suppliers with its occupational safety rules and, during audits, regularly investigates compliance with its standards at the sites.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria

2) Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria

 

Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria does not correspond to any SDG.

Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by EEW, 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 original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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