Wacker Chemie AG published its new Sustainability Report for 2013-2014. The facts and figures given in the report underscore that WACKER has made further progress in many areas that are of importance to sustainable business management. For example, the company has reduced specific energy consumption in polysilicon production by 29 percent.

In the report, WACKER publishes its environmental targets, figures on indirect energy consumption, and information on the relationship between water demand and the availability of fresh water. WACKER’s largest site, at Burghausen in Germany, has substantially reduced its emissions to water, while the Group’s silicon metal production plant in Norway cut its dust emissions by more than 30 percent. The Bavarian government honored WACKER with its Energy Award for the company’s success in reducing its specific energy consumption in the manufacture of polysilicon by 29 percent.

WACKER achieved a turnaround as regards workplace safety, cutting the number of occupational accidents per million hours worked by more than 40 percent across the Group within two years – from 4.7 in 2012 to 2.8 in 2014. The “WACKER Safety Plus” program was one of the main reasons for this success.

This year, WACKER joined the “Together for Sustainability” (TfS) procurement initiative, the goal of which is to encourage its member chemical companies to exercise global responsibility when purchasing goods and services and further enhance the ecological and social standards of their suppliers.

Sustainability is a core component of WACKER’s business model. To help meet its strategic goals, the company is focusing on the highly promising fields of energy, urbanization and construction, digitalization, and rising affluence in emerging markets. What is more, the importance of sustainability to WACKER is demonstrated by the fact that the company has made it one of its five strategic goals and has established corresponding business principles for this area.