levers to drive change

We can only achieve our ambition of transformational change by thinking in systems and collaborating with our partners along the value chain and beyond. In addition to our nine topic areas, we have defined three central levers that help us to achieve and scale up the necessary progress: Products & Technologies, People, Partnerships.

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Products & Technologies

Products and technologies are at the heart of everything we do. We create more value for our customers and consumers by constantly innovating to offer better performance with a reduced environmental ​footprint. ​

Driving sustainable impact across our portfolio

Sustainability is becoming an integral part of how Adhesive Technologies and Consumer Brands both shape their portfolios and steer their businesses. To create transparency and ensure measurable progress, the business units have established robust assessment tools that evaluate the sustainability performance of their products across the entire value chain.​

One cornerstone of this approach is the sustainability portfolio assessment, which is conducted every two years. The most recent assessment took place in 2025 and was externally audited by an independent third party, reinforcing our commitment to credibility and continuous improvement. At the heart of both of these assessment approaches is a holistic methodology​ that integrates sustainability into innovation, portfolio management, and customer engagement. Products are evaluated based on their contribution across four key dimensions: climate, circularity, safety, and nature.​

 

Creating value for our customers & consumers

Our Henkel Consumer Brands business unit align their brands and technologies with the specific sustainability challenges that are most relevant for their product portfolio, and integrate sustainability more strongly into brand and business strategies. ​

Our People

People are key for our business ​and our sustainability-related ​activities. Our employees contribute ​to sustainable development ​through their engagement. Our ​suppliers, shareholders, customers, ​consumers and neighbors play ​an important role in driving ​impactful change together.​

Empowering people, shaping the future 

We promote the skills and knowledge of our employees to help them achieve their full potential. Regular and constructive feedback about performance and potential serves as a foundation for their development. This makes it easier to define individual development measures that address each employee’s potential as well as the Company’s needs so that we can build a workforce that is fit for the future. ​

Initiatives & partnerships

Partnerships are decisive forimplementing and scaling progress for sustainability. We share knowledge and drive systemicsolutions forward by working together with our partners along the value chain and beyond – aswell as with experts, universities, civil society and other companies.

Cooperation along the value chain and beyond

Henkel co-founded the initiative “Together for Sustainability – Chemical ​Supply Chains for a Better World” (TfS) in 2011. TfS aims to harmonize ​increasingly complex supply chain management processes with regard to sustainability while also optimizing dialog among business partners worldwide. Suppliers then only have to conduct one assessment or audit. Audits are carried out by a number of selected, independent companies. Industry-wide collaboration increased significantly with TfS membership growing from 20 in 2020 to 58 in 2025. TfS assessments across all members reached more than 24,000 in 2025, doubling since 2020. 

 

Partnerships along the Value Chain
 

Explore how we implement
Sustainability at Henkel

Our Sustainability Ambition Framework

Our 2030+ Sustainability Ambition Framework sets the frame for our global sustainability strategy and covers the three dimensions of ESG: Environment, Social and Governance.