Clariant focuses sustainable management on areas that inevitably stem from the action of a globally operating chemical company: work, plant, process, and product safety, environment protection, innovation, employee responsibility and corporate governance. Added to this, there are areas that are identified as essential by intensive dialog with the interests groups, the so-called stakeholders. Examples for such areas are employment opportunities, local social commitment within the scope of corporate citizenship, raw material and water management. To ascertain key areas of sustainable actions, Clariant conducted an intensive dialog with all relevant interest groups. Over 150 internal and external stakeholders were involved; global market trends and business drivers were evaluated and prioritized.

Clariant performs this analysis on a regular basis. The Sustainability Council, the central steering committee for sustainability under the chairmanship of the CEO, evaluates the results and determines sustainability themes and areas, which are relevant in any business year or have significance with respect to the plans and targets. Regional sustainability committees must ensure that the sustainability strategy in the regions is being undertaken and uniformly implemented (G4-19) (G4-21).

The following materiality matrix gives an overview of the essential areas of the sustainability policy (G4-18). The matrix summarizes aspects with high and moderate relevance to Clariant's business and for the various stakeholders. This classification is also the result of comprehensive investigations within the Portfolio Value Program. For this purpose, experts within and outside the company analyzed market trends and business drivers in terms of sustainability. The themes and their guidance for the sustainability policy were tested for their timeliness and evident nature and finally adopted in the Sustainability Council in 2014. The information focal points of this report adhere to them (G4-19) (G4-21) (G4-20).

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