Vitesco Technologies presented its first Sustainability Report. The company presents its goals and progress in sustainability in a transparent and measurable manner over 150 pages following the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and other sustainability reporting guidelines. The report is now available online.
“Sustainability is a key topic of our corporate strategy,” explains CHRO Ingo Holstein. “The fact that we have been able to set up a new, young company has given us the opportunity to think about sustainability from the ground up and implement it in all of our business processes. We are thereby ensuring more than just clean mobility. We are also buying into the United Nations’ sustainability goals right from the start.”
As a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact, the company will transparently demonstrate how its Sustainability Agenda supports key principles in the areas of environmental protection, labor standards, human rights, and anti-corruption, and what specific development goals it takes into account.
The first priority is clean mobility, which is already an integral part of the corporate strategy with its systematic focus on climate-friendly drive technologies. The company already generates 10.6 percent of its sales with electric and electrified business solutions. The company wants to significantly expand this share in the coming years.
Another focus area of Vitesco Technologies’ Sustainability Agenda is climate protection. The first sustainability report already provides evidence in this regard: Vitesco Technologies’ own operations were already 90.6 percent carbon neutral in 2021. The external power required by the company for its production, research, and development locations came 100 percent from renewable sources.
By 2030, the company wants to have achieved complete carbon neutrality in all of its own operational activities. Moreover, Vitesco Technologies has set itself the ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality along its entire value chain by 2040 at the latest. This also includes all business activities beyond the company’s own processes – for example raw material extraction or use of the products. To calculate its carbon footprint, the company uses emission data from suppliers as well as mathematical calculation models.
Resource efficiency and circularity are further areas of sustainability in which Vitesco Technologies can drive forward development. In 2021, the company already achieved a waste recycling quota of 92.6 percent. This figure is expected to be 95 percent by 2030.
With regard to fair working conditions and diversity within the company, Vitesco Technologies has also established a good starting position: A key performance indicator in this area is the Employee Net Promoter Score, which reflects employee satisfaction and the company’s attractiveness as an employer. With an average score of 19, Vitesco Technologies is already very close to its strategic target of above 20 by 2030.
A dedicated interdisciplinary working group is also involved in anchoring human rights diligence along the value chain and integrating it into existing management systems. Important foundations have already been laid for this, including the publication of the company’s own Human Rights Policy and codes of conduct for employees and business partners. Since June 2021, Vitesco Technologies has also been a member of the Responsible Business Alliance, which, among other goals, is committed to human rights due diligence. These and further measures, as well as initial results, are presented in the responsible sourcing and partnerships section and throughout many other parts of the Sustainability Report.
“We have developed our Sustainability Agenda step-by-step with a clear understanding that, without intact ecosystems, there can be no intact economy,” explains Anja Rivera de la Cruz, head of Sustainability at Vitesco Technologies. “Of course, one company alone cannot save the world. But every company can and must make a contribution to climate protection and the preservation of our ecosystems. This is our conviction, which we consistently pursue.”