During two workshops held with relevant stakeholder groups, participants discussed and evaluated existing and new topics in terms of the company’s impact on the environment, society and the economy (inside-out) as well as the impact of these topics on SFS (outside-in). The material topics were defined on this basis, among them the new topic of “Sustainable solutions”.
At SFS, sustainability is an important driver of innovation. We strive to provide products and services that take their environmental, social and economic benefits into account over their entire life cycle – thereby also offering our customers sustainable value added. That includes:
- Developing forward-looking technologies, particularly with respect to environmentally friendly alternatives and products that offer higher energy efficiency.
- Ensuring sustainable resource and material management and improving resource productivity in keeping with the “reduce – reuse – recycle” principle.
- Reducing SFS generated waste.
In order for it to be able to implement these principles for new and existing solutions, SFS will start by introducing processes for collecting the relevant data in 2023. This will be done with the goal of improving transparency regarding the use and efficiency of materials, the type and amount of waste generated and of increasing the proportion of recycled materials. Together with the improved data basis, this should help the company better identify potential risks and opportunities within the scope of this topic as well as prevent and/or reduce negative consequences. Corresponding targets can then be defined for this area as well.
Creating sustainable value added for stakeholder groups
SFS components embedded into a customer’s product or used in the production process often account for less than 1% of the total product cost. But the costs at the customer end arising from procurement, logistics and handling operations can be several times the actual cost of these products. As a result, our main goal is not to cut our product costs and distinguish ourselves through a product’ sprice, but instead to enhance the product’s total utility for our customers and stakeholder groups in terms of economic, environmental and social benefits.
