Sustainability Governance

Overall responsibility – Board of Directors and Group Management

The composition, expertise, experience and diversity of the Board of Directors and Group Management are presented on Board of Directors and Organization. These also show employee representatives and independence with regard to Board members, and responsibility for monitoring, measurement and control of the operation’s impact, risks and opportunities. The Board of Directors is the highest governing body for sustainability issues and must approve all Group policies, including the Group’s Code of Conduct, which is the most important document for all employees’ business conduct. Policy-like governance documents that do not require Board approval are referred to by Trelleborg as Group directives.

A Group directive is approved at Executive Management level. With regard to current and forthcoming EU legislation on sustainability reporting, Trelleborg’s year was dominated by continued knowledge acquisition about the first generation of double materiality assessment  under the legislation for mandatory sustainability reporting CSRD, and the continued development of regulations for the EU Taxonomy. During 2024, Trelleborg will further develop Group policies and directives for issues or risks that are considered material from a sustainability perspective, throughout the value chain.

From 2024, company management comprises the sustainability steering committee in Trelleborg Group, and their management meetings include sustainability as a standing item on the agenda.

Internal framework, coordination and operational responsibility

The internal sustainability governance is conducted in accordance with the Group’s organization of sustainability responsibility into three different focus areas: Operations, Compliance and Social engagement, with distribution of responsibility and Group-wide performance measures. Sustainability Council and processes for sustainability targets Much of the day-to-day sustainability activities at Group level take place in a Sustainability Council that met every quarter in 2023, and which plans to meet every second month in 2024. When drafting the Group’s sustainability targets, the Sustainability Council prepares the topics and submits proposals to the steering committee/Executive Management, which subsequently decides on the proposed target.

Operational responsibility is also exercised through a number of cross-organizational groups with dedicated areas of responsibility (see diagram above). The cross-organizational groups operate in core areas such as Compliance, Chemicals and Raw materials/Circularity, as well as under the framework of Excellence activities. 

The Group’s business areas are themselves responsible for many of the practical sustainability activities. During the year, they routinely presented their planning and follow-up in the area for Group Management for the fulfillment of the Group’s sustainability targets.

In line with this responsibility at business area level to ensure sustainability performance and follow-up, sustainability controllers have been appointed at each business area for continuous planning and follow-up. Each production site already has an environmental coordinator, energy coordinator and occupational health and safety officers.

The sustainability work is further supported by various types of local internal audits in the units, for example, within the framework of the occupational Safety@Work program and internal ISO 14001 audit.