Through our materiality process and stakeholder engagement, we have pinpointed the most relevant topics for Electrolux.
Our sustainability approach is designed to address the topics of greatest importance to Electrolux and our stakeholders. The most important topics have been expressed as nine promises, supported by 2020 goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
The relevance of an issue is determined by three criteria:
A description of our materiality process can be found here.
For Electrolux, the most important stakeholders are customers, consumers, shareholders and employees. Their priorities and how they reflect our sustainability approach are outlined in Stakeholders inform our approach.
New and updated legislation is due to be introduced in several key areas over the next few years. In Brazil, energy-efficiency standards will come into force for professional appliances in 2017.
New regulation on high-impact greenhouse gases will become effective in Europe and the US (2020).
The EU energy label is being revised, and EU legislation towards a circular economy is being prepared. In 2015, the topic of human trafficking was addressed by the UK Modern Slavery Act, and by proposed revisions to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will impact the response to global challenges, broadening the discussion among and between businesses, governments and civil society. They will help us align our work in the community with the priorities of wider society. We will analyze this further in future materiality processes.
Although many of the sustainability issues facing Electrolux remain the same over a long period, their importance changes over time. Below are the areas where our internal analysis pointed to an emerging area, or showed increased importance for business and our stakeholders. These topics appear in no particular order and their importance is not inter-related.
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Topic |
Description |
Our response |
|---|---|---|
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Climate change |
The COP 21 Paris agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warning to less than 2oC.
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Renewable energy |
Relevance increased during 2015, as leading sustainable businesses demonstrated the feasibility of a strong renewable energy strategy. |
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Food waste |
Increasing in importance over several years, driven by growing concerns, and public and media interest. Roughly 1/3 of the world’s food for human consumption is wasted every year – approximately 1.3 billion tons. |
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Circular economy |
Emerging concept on a global scale. Relevance is increasing rapidly as businesses include circular principles in their products and the EU prepares legislation under the overarching themes of the circular economy. |
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Human rights |
Increasing in importance over the long term, as indicated by investors. New international standards and legislation are emerging, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as well as conflict mineral legislation in the US and EU. |
We are committed to respecting human rights in our own operations as well as along our supply chain and have specified objectives and KPIs in our promises 6 and 9 to fulfill this commitment. |
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Responsible taxation |
Sustained interest in this topic, with socially responsible investors requesting increased transparency on tax payment approaches and emerging legislation worldwide. |
We have increased transparency on taxation in the Annual Report and by making our tax policy publicly available. |