Accoutability to the local community
All industrial sites must develop and implement a local plan to address accountability to the local community. This plan must identify relevant stakeholders and determine the process through which to address stakeholder concerns, as well as set out the voluntary initiatives towards the local community in which the site wishes to engage.
About 29% of the sites have implemented a plan to address accountability to the local community while 45% of the sites are in the process of developing a plan.
These local action plans include initiatives such as organizing annual meetings with the people living in the neighbourhood of the plant, regular meetings with local authorities, organizing open days for the general public and for family members of the employees, addressing complaints (if any) from the neighbours, implementing action plans to reduce the impact on the environment (e.g. noise control) and the publication of a local EHS report.
An important step in designing a complete action plan per site is the identification of relevant stakeholders and identifying the potential impact that the site might have. Sometimes this exercise is straight forward; in other cases it is more difficult, especially when the plant consists of a small operation situated in a large industrial park or office building, with only other industries or companies as their neighbours. Further efforts will be made in 2007 to support these sites and to assist their efforts in carrying out systematic screening of their relevant stakeholders.
Umicore has four large-scale operations in the Flanders region of Belgium, employing some 3,180 people. As a result of this presence, the company has a well-defined and broad set of regional stakeholders in Flanders. In 2006, for the first time, Umicore organised a regional stakeholder dialogue at its Olen site on 23 May, involving more than a dozen targeted stakeholders. At this event questions to management (which included the CEO) focused on the sourcing of raw materials, the status of the clean-up activities around Umicore’s sites in Flanders, an overview of the progress in work safety performance and the Group’s new environmental targets up to 2010.
Many sites, including the commercial offices and headquarters, are involved in voluntary and charity-related activities. These activities range from donations to local cultural, educational or sporting activities to employee volunteering in community activities. These activities are grouped under the Group umbrella of “Umicare” but the decision-making process regarding the identification of projects and level of funding or employee commitment is managed and implemented at local level.