What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2021 Sustainability Report SKF identified a range of material issues, such as anti-corruption and anti-competitive behaviour, energy and emissions, occupational health and safety, diversity and equal opportunity. Among these, creating economic value for its stakeholders stands out as a key material issue for SKF.

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 SKF engages with:   

To identify and prioritise material topics SKF engaged with its stakeholders through the following channels:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Customers	·      Sales and marketing operations and activities carried out by the Group, which range from global discussions with key account managers to daily conversations between customer representatives and SKF’s local account managers ·      Customer surveys and assessments
Investors and analysts	·      Quarterly reports ·      Meetings with investors ·      Telephone conferences ·      SKF website ·      Press releases ·      Capital market days
Employees and union organisations	·      Annual World Union Council meeting ·      Periodic employee feedback surveys
Civil society	·      Local SKF organisations interact with their surrounding communities through various activities and initiatives, ranging from business related matters to volunteer work, charity work, sponsoring and local network collaboration
Suppliers	·      SKF’s responsible sourcing programme ·      Local sourcing offices ·      On-site audits and training

What actions were taken by SKF to create economic value for its stakeholders?

In its 2021 Sustainability Report SKF reports that it took the following actions for creating economic value for its stakeholders:

• Creating economic value for employees
• In 2021, SKF paid MSEK 24,270 for employee wages and benefits.

• Creating economic value for providers of capital
• In 2021, SKF paid MSEK 3,496 to providers of capital, including suggested dividends to SKF’s shareholders and interest expenses.

• Creating economic value for the government
• In 2021, SKF paid MSEK 2,484 in 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

 

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

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References:

This case study is based on published information by SKF, 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://investors.skf.com/sites/default/files/library/Sustainability report 2021_0.pdf

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