Strategic focus on sustainability in 2011
In 2011, FLSmidth planned an even more structured focus on strategic sustainability and corporate social responsibility by making it part of our new group strategy and vision that will guide the Group in the coming years.
Acknowledging that CSR is becoming increasingly important to FLSmidth’s customers, communities, and employees, we have embraced CSR as part of a moral responsibility as well as business practices that serve our industries and stakeholders.
We live by our corporate responsibility every day through such actions as developing equipment and products that conserve energy and reduce water usage. Due to our sustainability commitment, we design and provide environmentally friendly equipment, produce sustainable projects and seek innovations and patents that take climate change into account. We partner with local universities to conduct research that leads to environmentally sustainable products for our customers. To build our local communities, we initiate partnerships with universities to increase student education in engineering and technical fields.
Caring for our environment
With business units servicing the minerals and cement industries, we know that we have a significant potential indirect environmental impact on the earth. However, as a company, we have always been aware of the need to care for the natural environment while fulfilling our mission and to be a part of the solution. FLSmidth is a supplier of equipment and technology and our strength and focus is on our technical leadership and knowledge that enables us to develop equipment and technologies that are — not only leading in the industries we serve — but also are developed with a concern for the environment.
One of our strengths as a company in the fight for a better environment is our strong research and development function. Our innovations have given many of our customers the solutions they can use to protect the environment while still being productive and offering products the world needs for infrastructure and modern conveniences.
Carbon footprint
Having primarily office buildings and relatively few manufacturing sites, FLSmidth’s main consumption of resources is related to energy used for heating and air conditioning. Consequently, FLSmidth is primarily reporting on CO2, CO2e and other greenhouse gasses to the Carbon Disclosure project.
In 2011, the FLSmidth Group’s CO2-emissions were approximately 79,000 tonnes CO2 (2010: 76,000 tonnes) in scope 1 (direct emissions) and scope 2 (indirect emissions from electrical and district heating). Cembrit’s production of fibre cement accounted for around 39,000 tonnes CO2 of this amount (2010: 36,000 tonnes).
Code of Business Conduct - it's the way we work
Every FLSmidth manager is responsible for helping his or her employees to understand and comply with our Code of Business Conduct policy. We are strengthening a culture of officers, executives and employees who embrace the Group’s shared commitment to business ethics, integrity, credibility, and the preservation of our reputation.
In the autumn of 2011, FLSmidth created and announced a new Global Governance and Compliance department. This department will support operational managers who are responsible for enforcing the Group’s Code of Business Conduct, as well as facilitate and support the employees’ increased awareness of new international anti-bribery regulations and competition/anti-trust regulations.
Responsible sourcing
The world is changing rapidly, and FLSmidth is keeping pace by methodically and consistently incorporating social, ethical, environmental, and human considerations in our core business practices. We take our responsibility as a global corporation seriously and are well aware that our suppliers are an essential part of the way we
do business.
In 2011, we continued to develop our responsible sourcing program. In today’s world, human rights, labour standards, environment, and business ethics are growing to become just as important as the parameters of quality and price when a company selects a supplier. By entering into a dialogue with our suppliers, we acknowledge that improving their quality in a broad sense also embraces sustainability procedures. With this approach, we strive for mutual benefits for the customers, suppliers, communities, and for FLSmidth.
Managing a global workforce
We strive to attract, develop and retain the most qualified, innovative, and competent employees the industry has to offer. Through our highly skilled global workforce, FLSmidth is able to compete in the global marketplace and optimise our service to customers.
Employee surveys
Through our 2010 Employee Survey, we learned more about our employees’ view of FLSmidth policies and practices and gleaned helpful suggestions and insights that we incorporated into our business in 2011.
Overall, the survey showed a high level of employee satisfaction, above international benchmarks, but also areas which we are working to improve.
In 2012, we will conduct another employee survey. The 2010 employee survey was translated into 17 languages. We expect to offer the 2012 survey in even more languages.
Compliance: What gets measured improves
We conduct compliance reviews to gauge the status of our human resources, safety and health, and CSR areas of our business efforts. The response to the reviews guides us as we analyze and improve company-wide compliance.
Our human resources department started conducting a compliance review in August 2011. The purpose is to ensure that FLSmidth is complying with local regulations and laws as well as adhering to our company policies, norms, standards, and ethical guidelines.
New diversity initiative announced
Through a diverse workforce, we are better able to relate to our customers and connect with the unique local communities that host our operations. In 2011, we announced a plan of action to increase the number of women in management at FLSmidth.
Our focus is to increase the number of female managers from our current 8% to 10% by 2014.
Employee safety and health matters
We value our employees, customers, contractors, and partners. We show our commitment through safe and healthy working
conditions, safe travel and finally by delivering safe products and services.
Safety is so important at FLSmidth that, in 2011, we increased our safety management staff companywide. The safety organisation continues to add structure to our approach and to our ability to develop our safety practices, training, and oversight.
Tracking safety and health to reach our goals
By quarter and year, our safety teams track the total number of FLSmidth injuries, the number of injuries with lost working days and the number of lost working days in total. The results can be seen in the table on this page.
Through investigations and evaluations, we learn how we can improve and make our workplaces safer. Today, all injuries must be investigated and corrective action plans implemented in order to avoid repeated occurrence.
Our new global safety program works toward a standardised global safety training programme for technical supervisors. FLSmidth regards training as one of the most important and best solutions for improving safety among our employees.
Looking to more safety as we grow, our target in 2015 is clear
In 2012, safety will be reinforced by making it central to management objectives and accountabilities linked to the managers’ bonus targets. Looking ahead to 2015, we aim to ensure that our lost time injury frequency rate (that is injuries with lost time per million working hours) is not more than 3.0. This compares to a rate of 4.7 in 2010 and 4.2 in 2011.
Connecting with our communities
For FLSmidth, a local presence also means local responsibility. Our core business is knowledge intensive, so we believe in impacting the local societies with what we do best – offering knowledge improvement and development of people. Our philosophy is that when we are developing the local societies, we are also developing and improving our business.
Super service in our Supercenters
We have been investing time and resources to build eight service supercenters around the world that will open in 2012 and 2013. The centers will be in Mongolia, Peru, Australia, the US, South Africa, and Chile. These centers will offer warehouse parts, training, and equipment repair closer to our customers, which in turn supports their goals to run efficient and safe plants with more uptime. In the supercenters, we will provide safety training for our employees, customers, and the community. We will also give educational training related to using our products and increasing technical competencies.
This statement of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an extract of the progress report submitted to the UN Global Compact on 7 February 2012.
FLSmidth’s report can be seen in full here.