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Outokumpu Identifies Corporate Responsibility as Focus for 2008

01/31/2008 - Outokumpu identifies corporate responsibility as its theme for 2008, setting concrete targets for environmental and social responsibility with the aim that everyone at Outokumpu participates.

Outokumpu has named 2008, “Corporate responsibility theme year”. The company has set concrete targets for environmental and social responsibility with the aim that everyone at Outokumpu participates.
 
Outokumpu’s corporate responsibility theme year is a natural continuation of the company’s implementation of ethical principles and corporate responsibility policy, which was initiated in 2006. “Our management wants to stress with the theme year the importance of responsibility, especially environmental and social responsibility in our Group” said Outokumpu’s CEO Juha Rantanen. “Within social responsibility we had a safety theme year in 2005. Then the theme year with its targets mainly focused on production plants. Now we want to involve all Outokumpu employees in concrete deeds—both at plants and in offices”.
 
While corporate responsibility is essential part of business, the company says that it also incorporates countless everyday deeds. By paying special attention to these issues, Outokumpu has achieved good results as well as international recognition.
 
Outokumpu is a member of, among other things, the Pan-European Dow Jones STOXX Index 2007/2008 and gained for the first time membership also in the Dow Jones World Index. The Sustainable Asset Management company SAM, which carried out the analysis for Dow Jones Indexes, gave Outokumpu a SAM Sector Mover title in its Sustainability Year Book 2008 for its outstanding achievements and greatest relative improvement in the area of sustainability. There is, however, place for further improvements.
 
For the current theme year, Outokumpu has set concrete, measurable targets. Environmental responsibility targets include:
 
  • Reducing landfill waste from plant operations by 10% per ton processed, and non-classified (e.g. plastic cups and other non-recyclable material) waste from offices by 5%.
  • Reducing energy consumption at plants by 2% per ton processed, and in offices by 5% percent (e.g. using energy saving lamps, turning off lights and computers when not in use, not leaving in stand-by position).
  • Contributing to the effort to reduce global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
  • Selecting low-emissions cars (below 200g CO2/km) for future company car purchases.
  • Promoting tele/videoconferences rather than flying.
  • Investing 5 million euros in an environmental target to be identified through a group-wide competition.
Outokumpu’s social responsibility targets for the theme year include:
 
  • Decreasing number of accidents by one third.
  • Improving well-being at work through concrete actions (e.g. to combat workload, uncertainty related stress, unclear responsibilities, discrimination, etc.)
Outokumpu said that it will strive to continue to improve corporate responsibility and responsible performance even after the theme year, as the company wants to be number-one not only in stainless steel but also in corporate responsibility.