The carbon footprint – the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases – is the most widely discussed environmental externality. It reflects an urgent global challenge and there is a consensus about the methodology which is broadly applied by academia, industry, NGOs and governments. The following table presents the CO₂ emissions associated with our business activities along the value chain:
Amprenta de CO₂ a operațiunilor Henkel 2018
Our operational CO2 footprint 2021
Henkel’s own CO₂ emissions (Scope 1 and Scope 2 from a net viewpoint) are primarily caused by energy generation and consumption. Other sources of CO₂ emissions are not relevant to our business operations. The same applies to emissions of other greenhouse gases. We present the principal Scope 3 emissions along the entire value chain.
Social Externalities
Our sustainability strategy is a direct reflection of our company’s commitment to “Purposeful Growth”. We are committed to driving transformational change by creating more value for our stakeholders, developing our business successfully, and acting sustainably for the benefit of current and future generations. This includes Henkel’s about 51,200 employees as well as the people touched by our business along our value chains. We have estimated that approximately 50 million people work for our direct suppliers and in prior levels of our supply chain. And with our products and technologies, used in million households and industrial processes every day, we reach people. In this context, we have identified safety and health as well as social progress as the most relevant social impacts.
Quantification of Health and Safety (of about 51,200 people at Henkel)
Occupational safety within the company and along the value chain was a top priority for us even before the COVID-19 pandemic. We remain focused on our long-term objective of zero accidents and want to improve our occupational safety by 60 percent by the end of 2025 compared to 2010. We have anchored this overarching goal as a key performance indicator in our new sustainability strategy. In 2022, we recorded 0.7 occupational incidents per million hours worked by our employees. This is an improvement of 43 percent over the base year 2010. In 2022, there were no fatal occupational accidents involving an employee of Henkel or an external company working on behalf of a Henkel company at a Henkel site. Furthermore, we promote the health and vitality of our employees. To ensure holistic health care at all sites, Henkel works continuously to establish uniform principles for healthcare worldwide. In 2014, the first step was to introduce global health protection metrics, such as the availability of first aiders and emergency medical care, carrying out occupational health screenings, and the number of cases of occupational illness. They are reported each quarter by all Henkel sites worldwide.
The quantification of positive or negative impacts into a single metric such as “disability adjusted life years” ultimately valuing a life poses substantial challenges in terms of data availability and appears neither feasible nor an ethically acceptable indicator to steer our efforts.
To assess our impact along the value chain, we applied LCA methodologies to compare the health and safety of two products. However, it quickly became clear that no valid assumptions can be made to quantify the different steps in the value chain without disregarding the individual circumstances of for example the individual person, country or legislation.
Quantification of Social Progress in our value chain
Our Responsible Sourcing Policy and the “Together for Sustainability – Chemical Supply Chains for a Better World” (TfS) initiative involving more than 40 companies in the chemical industry form an important basis for this effort.
In addition, corporate citizenship has been an integral part of our corporate culture ever since the company was established by Fritz Henkel in 1876 and is also clearly reflected in our corporate purpose. Henkel’s commitment is based on three pillars: volunteer engagement by our employees, partnerships with charitable organizations, and emergency aid in the event of natural disasters. Our overarching target was to reach 30 million people through our social engagement activities by 2025. From 2010 through the end of 2022, we reached more than 30 million people.
In 2022, we supported a total of about 2,060 projects and reached around 4.15 million people. Donations (of cash and products, excluding additional time off work for employees) amounted to about 12.8 million euros during the reporting year.