Sustainability In Action

Sustainability at FUCHS means continuous improvement and further development. We have been working systematically on optimizations in the three sustainability dimensions of economy, ecology, and social aspects since 2011 and have established the following key milestones in these areas both along and beyond our process chain.

• Creation of a central sustainability department and the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) position at the FUCHS Group HQ, whose duties include standardization, optimization, and further development of existing processes in the sense of sustainable corporate management and who support all accompanying activities for sustainable business development throughout the Group as well as corporate citizenship (CC).
• Establishment of the FUCHS Sustainability Committee (FSC) at Group HQ, comprising the representatives of the sustainability department, the Chairman of the Managing Board at FUCHS SCHMIERSTOFFE GmbH (FS) as well as the global function leaders from Procurement, Research & Development, Product Management, OEM, and Industry Sales. The FSC convenes at least three times a year. The members of the FSC are responsible for the implementation and operative design of the sustainability strategy in their respective divisions.
• Nomination of Local Sustainability Officers (LSOs) at each FUCHS production location. These LSOs control the implementation of the sustainability activities at their respective location and act as counterpart for the sustainability department at Group HQ, being available as a contact to answer individual questions.
• Implementation of Local Sustainability Meetings at the production sites of the FUCHS Group. The object of the global company visits is to provide active support and consulting for the local manufacturing companies on topics relevant to sustainability. In addition to this, regular information exchange was established between the central sustainability department and the LSOs, which are responsible for ensuring measures for sustainable business activities are tracked at the local company level. At the start of 2018, the first Global Sustainability Meeting will be held at the FUCHS HQ in Mannheim. All LSOs from the FUCHS manufacturing companies across the globe have been invited to attend this meeting.
• Description of the FUCHS principles for sustainable and socially responsible business activities in a comprehensive FUCHS Sustainability Guideline, which has been available on the FUCHS company website since the start of 2013. A new version of this document is scheduled for release at the start of 2018.
• Getting written confirmation from our centrally managed suppliers on their compliance with ethical corporate requirements and minimum social standards, either pursuant to the FUCHS Sustainability Guide or other dedicated guidelines they themselves have put in place.
• Inclusion of sustainability criteria as a component of the annual FUCHS supplier performance evaluation. All centrally managed FUCHS suppliers are evaluated on the basis of selected sustainability criteria (e.g. carbon footprint) within the scope of the annual supplier performance evaluation.

• Certification of FUCHS locations on the basis of various quality and sustainability standards. As of 2017, all production locations in the FUCHS Group work to the ISO 9001 quality management standard. In addition to this, 60% of the production locations are certified to the ISO 14001 environmental management standard, 30% are certified to the OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety management system, while five production locations in Europe are certified to the ISO 50001 energy management system.
• Signing of the new Responsible Care (RC) Global Charter published by the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) in mid-2014, whose focus is especially on sustainable development. As a signatory, FUCHS is committed to continuously improving its own processes and services in the fields of environmental protection, climate protection, product responsibility, quality, health, and safety.
• Development of a system of reporting for selected sustainability key performance indicators in the economic, ecological, and social arena. This data is collected at FUCHS companies and then analyzed, consolidated, and published once a year. Since 2014, FUCHS has continuously reduced energy and water consumption, as well as specific waste generation per ton of FUCHS lubricants produced.
• Introduction of CO₂-limits for the vehicle fleets operated by the global FUCHS subsidiaries.

• Implementation of a materiality analysis for establishing a materiality matrix at FS, based on the Chemie³ Sustainability Check from the Association of the German Chemical Industry (VCI), in which the Management Board and the division leaders of FS, as well as the CSO from FUCHS took part. From 30 preselected fields of action that represent topics relevant to small and medium-sized companies in the German chemical industry, 15 topics were worked out that are critical to both FS and external stakeholders. Out of these, the participants classified four fields of action as high-priority during the self-evaluation and identified them as future improvement projects to be implemented in the area of sustainability.
• Introduction of the annual FUCHS Sustainability Award for the most sustainable product or project development within the FUCHS Group worldwide. This internal competition is held annually and serves to anchor the topic of sustainability even more keenly at FUCHS.
• Support and promotion of scientific, cultural, and social projects at the company locations worldwide within the scope of CC. At Group HQ, these include the FUCHS Sponsorship Award that has been presented every year since 2000 to social projects in Mannheim. In 2017, the award included €50,000 in prize money. Group HQ is also involved in cooperation and commitments in a series of events held by the chamber of industry and commerce, high-ranking universities, student and graduate organizations as well as schools with a focus on strengthening sustainability in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. Since 2016, we have been co-financing the CSR foundation professorship at the University of Mannheim with an annual endowment of €3,000.
• Establishment of partnership projects with sustainability experts from major industrial enterprises such as Evonik Resource Efficiency (project: calculation of the FUCHS corporate carbon footprint) and BASF Fuel and Lubricant Solutions (project: FUCHS life-cycle assessment).
• The impetus, naming-giving, and spokesperson's role of FUCHS in a sustainability initiative for the lubricants industry (NaSch), which was founded in cooperation with other lubricant companies and associations in Germany. The objective of NaSch is to establish sustainability in the German lubricants industry and generate standards/benchmarks for the lubricants sector that provide companies with information to help optimize operations and increase efficiency. This is done on the basis of quantitative capture of ecological sustainability key performance indicators at member companies.

The sustainability dimension of ecology is of special and therefore targeted significance for FUCHS:

For us, ecological sustainability has two meanings – measuring and, wherever possible, reducing the ecological “Foot-Print” of the company – that is to say the effects on environment and resources connected with the extraction and procurement of raw materials from our suppliers, their processing and blending in our lubricant plants, delivery of the finished lubricants to our clients and disposal of the products. And it also means quantifying and, wherever possible, increasing the ecological "FUCHS-Print” – that is, the positive effects that our customers can achieve in terms of reducing friction, wear, and corrosion in the use phase by employing our lubricant products.

FUCHS has received multiple awards for its sustainability management, including:

• The "Sustainability Award 2015" from the financial and economic magazine Capital Finance International (CFI) for the best corporate management in Germany pursuant to ESG criteria (environmental, social, and governance). In its jury decision, CFI stated that FUCHS not only pursues sustainability with its products, but also addresses the diverse sustainability topics it faces as a responsible, global Group.
• The “German Sustainability Award (DNP) 2016” as first company to win in the lubricants industry. According to the expert jury, FUCHS demonstrated through numerous measures and measurable successes that a lubricant producer can also integrate sustainability into its own business model via the added value chain and thereby continuously improve on its level of sustainability. FUCHS is a company that acts as a role model in its sector and was therefore awarded the title of "Germany's most sustainable medium-sized company 2016". The German Sustainability Award (DNP) is presented each year by the German Sustainability Award Association in cooperation with the German government, municipal umbrella organizations, trade associations, civil society organizations, and research institutes.
• An award presented by the "Alliance for greater resource efficiency" in 2017 for the project at the Mannheim location entitled "Energetic and material use of waste condensate - a contribution to sustainability". The initiative behind this, "100 Enterprises for Resource Efficiency in Baden Württemberg," highlights how resource efficiency can be implemented in concrete terms and what benefits it can bring. FUCHS received €10,000 for its participation, provision of results, and case study.