CSR strategies

In recent years, automotive suppliers have been adopting a product life cycle approach, paying attention to CSR issues at all stages of their supply chain.

From an environmental point of view, the key issue is the reduction of the carbon footprint and the relatively long service life of the industry's products. The very use of a car has the greatest impact on the environment. This clearly shows that improvements are worth making, especially during the design phase (e.g. using light materials, improving fuel efficiency, inventing new energy sources).

One of the effective CSR initiatives is, for example, the implementation of management in line with the idea of a green supply chain (GSCM), which refers to the integration of environmental aspects into the entire value chain.

Therefore, being aware of the potential of sustainable business (e.g. the possibility of increasing economic, social and environmental results) many companies from the automotive sector try to implement CSR programs to integrate environmental and social aspects not only into their supply chain but also into the business strategy and directly into the organizational culture of the company.

See how we do it at Knauf Group!

The Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy is a comprehensive plan that modern companies use to design, implement and analyze their corporate social responsibility initiatives.

All CSR activities have an impact on the financial performance of companies, brand reputation, cost savings and customer loyalty, but most of all, they aim to have a positive impact on the local community, sustainable supply chains and climate change. Therefore, managing directors develop a strategic CSR plan and are required to educate employees and other stakeholders about initiatives for sustainable development and social and environmental benefits.

See how our managing directors and project teams develop a strategic CSR plan and engage and educate employees, customers and other stakeholders on initiatives for sustainable development, social and environmental benefits.

At the end of June 2022, our Group was the victim of a major cyber-attack that considerably disrupted all our production and administrative management systems. Thanks to the exemplary commitment of all our employees, we were able to overcome this difficulty and maintain delivery to our customers.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for the patience, support and staying with us through those difficult times and as well to the employees of Knauf Industries that once again have shown what they are capable of doing when it matters most and to support our customers.

A major challenge for our markets and us as a company is to find our role to drive decarbonization of our processes and support our business partners to do the same.

The scale of climate change and the fact that human activities are exceeding planetary limits mean that we need to draw up and implement a realistic, ambitious roadmap to consistently reduce our impact. Knauf Industries is working hard on this, as part of our CSR approach and the Knauf Group's Must Win Battle Sustainability. We have set ourselves targets for reducing our emissions and consumption in terms of our direct impact on the production process, otherwise known as "scope 1", and our indirect impact, upstream and downstream, as well as on our purchasing, otherwise known as "scopes 2 and 3".

DIRK BAUER, CEO of Knauf Industries

After undertaking a CSR diagnosis, we applied the principles of the United Nations Global Compact to carry our initiative through into the long term.

In 2020, despite the context of the Covid-19 pandemic which was a big challenge of corporate social responsibility for lots of industries, we did not review our CSR plans and budgets. We continued to structure our CSR approach, define our priority issues, and involve our teams and stakeholders. But this is still just the beginning of our CSR efforts. We want to anchor this strategy to give life to new ideas, to innovate, and to continue to create shared value together in our territories.

The corporate social responsibility issues and challenges that we took into account were:

• Integrating CSR strategy into our activities and businesses
• Guaranteeing health, safety and well-being at work
• Recovering materials at the end of their life
• Protecting the health and safety of consumers and local communities
• Reducing our consumption and emissions

We invite you to read how our responsibility applies to our teams, our markets, our territories, and our environment, all at the same time.

• CSR Mission
  CSR organisation and actions have been defined by the Knauf Industries Management Committee and monitored by a Steering Committee since 2019. A group of “CSR Mission” Ambassadors, comprising around thirty volunteer employees from various company departments and countries, is now fully familiar with CSR. In 2021, these Ambassadors contributed to the definition of three policies: CSR, Social and Environmental.
  Their missions are assigned depending on their skills, feelings and motivations:
  - Propose actions related to strategic challenges and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
  - Be an internal and/or external communicator for Knauf Industries’ initiatives and CSR policy.
  - Contribute to the reporting related to our commitment to the Global Compact and trade organisations.
  - Contribute to continuous improvement projects on social, ethical, environmental or responsible purchasing subjects.


• Signing the United Nations Global Compact
  Since 2019, Knauf Industries has been committed, via the United Nations Global Compact, to the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals to transform the world, collected in the 2030 Agenda.

“Our three policies, CSR, social and environmental, confirm Knauf Industries’ commitment to sustainable development and define quantified objectives for 2025.”
Gilles Istin, Sales, Marketing, innovation and CSR director, Knauf Industries

• In France, in partnership with Michelin and Pyrowave, we are planning to speed up the development of the EPS chemical recycling activity through an economically viable plant that would produce monomer styrene.
• In Brazil, at São Paulo, Knauf Isopor^® is contributing to the development of EPS recycling through collection points throughout the city, in partnership with the NGO Plastivida, the distribution chain Pão de Açúcar (Casino group). 
• In Brazil, at Joinville in one of the biggest business parks in South America, Knauf Isopor^® is driving the Isopor^® Amigo project, the two main objectives of which are to inform and to promote EPS recycling, through collection points. The national association Abiplast is contributing to the promotion of this concept throughout the country.
• In Brazil, partnerships have also been set up with industrial companies for the collection of EPS, and our Brazilian smartphone application Reciclando Isopor^® locates the nearest collection point.
• In Spain, jointly with other companies, Knauf Industries is part of the Eco-EPS network, coordinated by the National Association for Expanded Polystyrene (ANAPE). Our plants in Villafranca Del Penedes, Zaragoza, Aoiz and Esquiroz (in the Aragon region and in Navarre) are contributing to the recycling of collected EPS.

The central buyers, located in France, Poland, and Brazil, are aware of competition law, and two of them are “Mission CSR” ambassadors. In each country, the sites are responsible for groups of additional purchases, in compliance with the principles of business ethics. To be clear with our suppliers, to make them aware of our expectations and to build mutual trust, we have implemented a “Responsible Purchasing Charter” covering environmental, social, and ethical issues.

Our suppliers are also obliged to observe a Code of Conduct. We carry out regular qualification audits, we respect payment deadlines, and we favor suppliers located in Europe for our European sites, for example.

What is more, early in 2020, Knauf Industries launched a consultation with its internal and external stakeholders. To enrich its thought process and offer stakeholders the opportunity to make their expectations, inspirations, and proposals for the future, a questionnaire was posted online, and interviews were conducted. These allowed everyone to get to know each other better and build trust, share expertise, consider synergies, identify weak signals, define the most relevant CSR issues, and build a solid action plan. The external stakeholders and employee feedback, which is very important for every CSR project, enable us to implement better sustainability initiatives and make additional value for our clients.

Because Knauf Industries is the specialist partner for custom products and solutions, co-development is often key in this collaboration. It enables us to better respond to regulatory changes and to the increasing influence of the end consumer.

Guaranteeing food safety or safe industrial products, being able to depend on a reliable partner and constant product quality, with minimum environmental impact, are the priority expectations of our customers. 

The Knauf Industries health and safety policy concerns all company activities and all persons present on all sites. All QHSE (Quality, Health, Safety and Environment) managers refer to it. The unique risk evaluation document (URED) is drawn up in consultation with the teams; it incorporates a risk evaluation and a procedure for the prevention of psycho-social risks.

Below, we describe some of the CSR activities which we develop in this sector.

• ISO 14001
  Compliance of our management system with the environmental regulatory requirements in each country.
• REDcert²
  Compliance of our management system and our products obtained from biomass with the requirements related to renewable energy sources and the circular economy.
• ICPE classification
  Compliance of our French factories with the requirements of the French environmental code.

See more: Quality systems certification for 0 defects

The continuous improvement process consists of regular efforts to improve products, services or processes. Knauf Industries relies on a benchmark  common to all divisions of the Knauf Group. It describes the behaviour required for the continuous improvement system to succeed.

The measured effectiveness of all the environmental actions is shared in a monthly reporting document that concerns all sites.

Every Knauf Industries site develops annual improvement plans. These include actions relating to health and safety, the reduction of consumptions and emissions, customer satisfaction and the quality of products and services, the reduction of production costs, and the awareness and training of employees.

Our objective, wherever possible, is to reduce the weight of material and to increase the proportion of recycled materials, in all our products. This is part of our eco-design principles. We apply these rules for our standard product range and, wherever possible, for custom packaging and products that we codevelop with our customers.

We optimise product design to reduce the amount of raw material used, while maintaining the performance, functionalities and initial qualities. Over the last 15 years, all our packaging has been lightened, irrespective of the material. The weight of meat trays, for example, has been reduced by 12%.

From 2013 to 2022, we reduced our nitrogen oxide emissions by 54% on all our EPS and EPP moulding sites in France. We replaced our last fuel boilers with boilers operating on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), which emit less pollution and are more energy-efficient.

We are working with our raw materials suppliers to reduce the pentane ratio in expanded polystyrene – pentane being the expanding agent in EPS. These actions enable us to now use materials with a lower pentane ratio, reduced from 7% to 4,56%.

The Executive Committee, the Steering Committee, and the 43 Ambassadors of Knauf Industries actively participated in the strategic analysis and drafting of the CSR action described in this Report.

This report was created with the participation of many Knauf Industries employees who attended workshops or contributed to the collection of the CSR data presented in this report.