Brenntag, the global market leader in chemical distribution, has published its Sustainability Report for the Financial Year 2017. In this Group report, the company presents its performance in the field of sustainability and documents its global activities and achievements in the areas of safety, environmental protection, supply chain responsibility, employees and social envolvement.

Steven Holland, Chief Executive Officer of Brenntag AG, comments: “Sustainably managing a globally operating, decentralized company such as Brenntag is a permanent challenge that we are happy to take. In this report – our fifth to date – we continue to provide transparent information on our activities and report on the status of our global sustainability targets. In 2017, for example, we succeeded in cutting Group-wide CO₂ emissions per tonne of goods sold by around 2.5% compared to 2016. Our goal is to achieve a reduction of 6% by 2020.”

Brenntag has also had success with the topic of sustainable procurement. Within the scope of its membership of the “Together for Sustainability” industry initiative, the company has now assessed the sustainability performance of a large number of its suppliers. These suppliers represent around 64% of Brenntag’s total chemical spend worldwide. “This means that we have already achieved our target coverage ratio of 50% by 2020. The challenge now is to integrate the findings obtained even further into our purchasing processes,” says Dr Dirk Eckert, Group Sustainability Manager at Brenntag.

The Brenntag Group’s fundamental approaches, organizational structures and processes for managing sustainability issues are presented in the current report. Numerous examples from the operating units provide an insight into practical operations and show how sustainability is implemented in Brenntag’s regions worldwide.

Safety, which is of paramount importance at Brenntag, is a focus area of the report. “Safety requires constant vigilance from all of us and does not happen by itself. This makes it all the more important that we do not ease up on our efforts in this area. We are working hard to achieve continuous improvements in our company’s safety culture and increase employees’ awareness of safe behaviour both in the workplace and in their personal lives,” emphasizes Steven Holland.

Brenntag’s Sustainability Report for the Financial Year 2017 is based on the “Sustainable Reporting Standards” (SRS) of the internationally recognized “Global Reporting Initiative” (GRI). Selected content also forms the separate non-financial Group report to ensure compliance with the legal requirements of the German CSR Directive Implementation Act (CSR-RUG). This content has been externally reviewed for the first time.