For Continental, sustainability means having a positive impact on society and reducing the negative impact of business operations. Sustainability is an integral part of the corporate strategy at Continental and is based on the four company values of Trust, Passion To Win, Freedom To Act and For One Another.
The Sustainability group function overseen by the board member for Human Relations and Sustainability is responsible for sustainability management, including management of an interdepartmental committee. Sustainability organization is further supplemented by dedicated coordinators in the business areas. Some of the business areas also have their own interdepartmental sustainability committees.
In fiscal 2019, the Executive Board approved a sustainability strategy. The key topics were identified on the basis of a survey of stakeholder groups. The sustainability strategy incorporates the four strategic focus areas of clean mobility, climate protection, circular economy and sustainable supply chains, for which the respective challenges have been defined. The corresponding concepts, goals and key performance indicators are being developed successively. A sustainability scorecard covers not only the four strategic focus areas but also all other sustainability topics, such as green and safe factories, good working conditions, product quality, corporate governance, innovation and digitalization, safe mobility, sustainable profits and corporate citizenship.
The sustainability scorecard represents the formal basis for integrating sustainability into other processes. Sustainability criteria were incorporated into the corporation’s new revolving credit line at the end of 2019, for example, the result of this being that the amount of interest payments for use of the credit line is also linked to improved sustainability performance. Information about this can be found in the Corporate Management section under “Financing strategy” on pages 43 and 44.
The sustainability strategy is subject to regular review and is continuously developed. The entire corporate Executive Board is involved in this process.
