Stakeholders involvement

Given the important role that the chemical, plastics and life sciences industry plays in society, essenscia attaches great importance to a constructive dialogue with stakeholders such as NGOs and public authorities. Consultation with all interested parties is therefore an essential aspect of our work. In its daily activities, essenscia is in regular contact with its stakeholders, for example through the many essenscia events in which stakeholders are actively involved. The federation’s participation in regional, national and European advisory and consultative bodies is a further indication of the importance it attaches to dialogue.

From the very first edition of the sustainability report in 2009, stakeholders were actively involved in its creation. In the preparatory phase, essenscia organises meetings to gather their advice and input, and asks for their feedback after publication as well. essenscia is grateful for their valuable input, which is taken into account as much as possible.

Listening to stakeholders’ advice
2009 Materiality analysis to select the indicators
2011 Adding stakeholders quotes
2013 Developing visions
2015 Adding indicators on resource efficiency and innovation
2017 Updating materiality analysis leading to additional indicators
2019 Adding narratives on highly material topics including climate change
Better explanation of the scope of the report, its methodology and its relation to the SDGs
Ensuring a balanced tone in the entire report

For this edition, more than 200 people from 48 organisations were invited to participate in both an online materiality survey and a stakeholder event on February 11, 2021. Both were aimed at gathering broad feedback – at the beginning of the process – on which material topics should be prioritized in the sustainability report.  This year it was decided – in addition to the ‘classic’ stakeholders – to actively seek feedback from young people (< 30 years old), both internally within the sector at our companies and externally (youth representatives & students in various university programs), in order to hear how they view the material topics of the sector. An overview of the stakeholders who effectively contributed via either the online materiality survey or the stakeholder event can be found below. 

The main feedback this year was: 

  • The most material topics for the industry are:
    • climate, energy
    • sustainable production & consumption
    • health, employee health & safety
    • water
    • industry & innovation, economic growth, 
  • Stakeholders appreciated the proactive and honest attitude of essenscia when approaching sensitive topics (such as microplastics or hormone disruptors) and they encourage more of this in future.
  • Both Green Deal and SDG are important to frame the report.
  • The current set of indicators are considered all material and may be retained.
  • Be more concrete where possible, and to better indicate the role (also positive) of the sector in society.
  • Products (in addition to production) deserve equal attention throughout the report.
  • The feedback received from the -30 years old via a specific materiality survey did not differ fundamentally from that of the stakeholders surveyed by the +30 years old and is therefore not shown separately. 

Overview of participating stakeholders

In total, we received feedback from 75 people through either the online materiality survey or the stakeholder event. We thank them for taking the time to do so and for the valuable feedback that was incorporated as much as possible into the further development of this report.