Strategy progress in 2021
UN and world leaders call the years up to 2030 the “Decade of Action." We are clear that it will be actions, not just words or strategy, that will create impact. We have therefore worked quickly to translate our goals into activities.
After publishing our 2030 Sustainability Strategy in July 2020, the Executive Committee worked together with the sustainability team to finalize the KPIs and targets for each of the three streams People with Impact, Products with Impact and Operations with Impact. These ambitious goals were then challenged and approved by internal expert groups and, in September, by the Beckers Board. In fall 2020, we started fully rolling out the strategy across the company with a series of events designed to get everyone involved.
The roll-out continued in 2021 and we integrated our 2030 Sustainability Strategy across the company. We put the focus throughout the year on employee engagement, because to achieve our goals we must all be on board and involved.
Site workshops and actions plans
In March 2021, we held a Sustainability Roadshow. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we held the eight workshops in a digital format. Around 260 participants from all countries attended the workshops and succeeded in filling 188 whiteboards with ideas for action over the course of 56 hours. Supported by a globally trained coordinator, they formed working groups and each Beckers site developed its own local roadmap and action plan with immediate actions for that year and the following three years, as well as goals for 2030. The outcome was individual site action plans and strategies for sustainable investments. These were presented by the Managing Directors to the Global Support Committee and the stream teams in June 2021 and communicated in every local language. The roll-out and full integration of our 2030 Sustainability Strategy was supported by diverse internal communication activities.eastSee also Internal Communication
Progress towards our goals
The progress we made towards our goals in 2021 is set out in detail in this report. Within each stream, these are some of the highlights.
To provide better visibility on our progress towards the goals, we developed a company-wide sustainability dashboard of our KPIs, which is updated monthly or quarterly depending on the KPI. It provides a company overview as well as results for each site, with KPIs for all 2030 Sustainability Strategy goals, milestones each year and progress towards our targets.
What. Products with Impact.
Our new CTO, Gavin Bown, has pushed our sustainability agenda forward on many fronts. We began restructuring R&D with the focus on improving the sustainability of Beckers’ products. We created the role of a Global Product Sustainability Director for Beckers Group who, together with their team, will advance our product sustainability. We made great progress with our Beckers Sustainability Index (BSI). It gives us much better visibility of the issues that we need to address in improving product sustainability into the future. With the BSI, we have mapped more than 90 percent of our sold volume in terms of material sustainability and made good progress in understanding the functional sustainability of our products. We also started developing our own bespoke Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) tool. It will enable us to determine the carbon footprint of our products. eastSee also Management Approach: Products with Impact
We. People with Impact.
To address people sustainability in a holistic way, we have created the people sustainability pyramid. We have implemented Behavior-Based Safety programs on our sites and we are making good progress with our safety observations. Despite these advances, our LTIs (Lost Time Injuries) increased this year to 10.
In 2021, we conducted our second global engagement survey, with 94 percent worldwide participation. Scores increased across all items, including leadership, Net Promoter Score (NPS) and team efficiency.
We also kicked off our leadership journey for all people managers and strengthened internal communication, with quarterly townhalls open to all and our “True Colors” campaign, which provides a global platform for employees’ sustainability stories. In addition, we continued our quarterly Check-Ins for all colleagues and integrated sustainability targets into all variable compensation.eastSee also Management Approach: People with Impact
Do. Operations with Impact.
To support our efforts in gathering data, analyzing sustainability performance, sharing best practices, and supporting sites in building and implementing their sustainability programs, we created three new positions: VP Global Sustainable Industrial Development, Environment & Energy Manager, and Global Sustainability Controller.
We developed our Paint Plant of the Future concept, a long-term investment program that will future-proof Beckers’ sites with regard to sustainability. We also significantly reduced our landfill waste and increased our share of renewable electricity, which is now up to 56 percent (YTD).eastSee also Management Approach: Operations with Impact
