The complexity of environmental concerns and commercial pressures facing DSM
presents both challenges and opportunities. It is DSM’s policy to view
challenges as opportunities and to seek innovative ways of exploiting these in
a sustainable manner. With the support of SustainAbility, a consultancy firm
that advises corporations on the risks and opportunities associated with
sustainable development, DSM commenced a strategic review of its
sustainability policy in 2007. The objective of this review was to set out a
robust approach to issue and stakeholder identification and prioritization
that reinforces the company’s existing processes, ambitions and vision.
Key issues
The review involved defining a range of key issues
that are of relevance to DSM’s sustainability performance, identifying and
prioritizing these in terms of both their societal impact and their business
impact on DSM, and analyzing the stakeholders to whom these issues are
pertinent.
Materiality assessment
This procedure led to a materiality
assessment. The business impact assessment took into account financial,
operational and reputational considerations. In a parallel procedure, the same
set of key issues was analyzed in terms their impact on society. We
investigated the opinion of a selected group of non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), media, investors and downstream users.
Key strategic and sensitive issues
On the basis of this study,
we defined a group of key strategic and sensitive issues requiring
prioritization. These issues will be actively managed, and we are according
high priority to clear stakeholder engagement and interaction in this context.
Four of these issues are identified as ‘global trends’ for DSM. Our
sustainability agenda will focus on these four global trends, which are:
