What does sustainability mean to CIA members?
Sustainability is broad in scope, multidisciplinary in nature and constantly evolving. CIA has a dedicated Sustainability Steering Group that is comprised of member company sustainability experts and guides the development of CIA's sustainability programme. Part of our Steering Group's work has been understanding and communicating what sustainability means across membership, some of which is described below. CIA has also launched a Sustainability Hub designed to facilitate best practice sharing between members and frequently engages in an open dialogue with a variety of stakeholders including Government, Academia and other organisations.
The above visualisation is a result of combining the sustainability priorities of approximately 30 member companies to give an overview of sustainability. Each quarter of the circle represents a different pillar of sustainability: Economic, Environmental, Social and Governance. Topics are positioned depending on which level they are likely to be of most relevance to stakeholders, beginning with company operations at the centre and extending out to global relevance.
Many CIA members publicly report on non-financial performance either in reports complementary to their financial disclosures, integrated within them, or through other means. This process involves applying the concept of materiality: identifying the topics on which an organisation has the greatest impact and also topics that are of most interest to stakeholders (employees, communities, shareholders, government, unions, supply chain). Members then define key performance indicators, set targets to improve them and drive performance in order to meet those targets. It's important to note that not every topic will be material to every CIA member due to the broad spectrum of activities carried out by the chemical industry and the varying compositions of stakeholders across companies.
Take a look at some more information directly from some CIA members of the Sustainability Steering Group: BASF; Croda; GSK; Innospec; Johnson Matthey; Lubrizol; Lucite; Thomas Swan & Co; Urenco
Access CIA's member directory for links to other websites for more information.