Enhancing community wellbeing

[GRI 413-1, 413-2; ESRS S3-1, S3-4]

The Lenzing Group’s various production sites operate in specific ecological, social, and economic environments. A map showing the locations can be found in the “About the Lenzing Group” chapter. Lenzing businesses and their regional partners are mutually dependent, sharing opportunities as well as challenges.

Community wellbeing is therefore necessary for the company’s continued operations. As a good corporate citizen, the Lenzing Group promotes the beneficial development of the communities and regions where it operates. This is achieved through safe and eco-friendly operations, fair employment practices and contributions to local economic development and community life.

Promoting societal wellbeing is a key cornerstone of Lenzing’s “Naturally positive” sustainability strategy and more than just a question of ensuring society’s acceptance of Lenzing’s activities. The Lenzing Group takes its responsibility as a large industrial company and reliable corporate citizen very seriously, even outside its direct business operations. The company strives to help improve the living conditions of its neighbors. Lenzing relies on them just as much as they rely on Lenzing. 

In addition to conducting safe and environmentally responsible operations with fair business practices, Lenzing provides support to numerous social and environmental protection projects, often over many years. It also promotes local activities, from educational initiatives to healthcare and infrastructure measures. The individual production sites of the Lenzing Group act autonomously for the most part in selecting specific projects and measures that support local development and contribute to a positive social environment. For more information, please see the “Social responsibility” focus paper. Details on Lenzing’s handling of complaints can be found in the “Buiness ethics” chapter.

Managing social sustainability

In the reporting year, the company defined its purpose, culture and strategy anew for the coming years. In its “Better Choices” corporate culture, the Lenzing Group focuses on the topic of “people” as a strategic link. Accordingly, the topic of social sustainability has a high priority at Lenzing as part of its holistic approach to sustainability. It is increasingly being seen as a compliance topic within the industry. This requires a systematic agenda and the management of social sustainability targets, which is why the Social Sustainability department (within Human Resources – Corporate People Development) was established at the beginning of 2022 to aggregate activities there and drive the topic forward. Further details on the targets and a progress report can be found in the “Sustainability targets, measures and progress” chapter.

Corporate citizenship

Both locally and internationally, the Lenzing Group takes its social responsibility as a corporate citizen seriously and makes a major contribution to strengthen the economy in the regions where it operates. This is confirmed yet again by a study of the socio-economic and regional economic importance of the Lenzing Group, conducted by the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung KG (Innsbruck, Austria) for the year 2022. The study concludes that the business operations of the Group have measurable socio-economic effects that extend far beyond purely economic (business) aspects.

Overall, the study concludes that the Lenzing Group creates 23,424 jobs worldwide. Every job within the Lenzing Group creates more than two additional jobs in another branch of the economy. Furthermore, the public sector benefits in the form of tax revenues and social security contributions. The study also quantifies the number of jobs that were created in the respective region indirectly – through the company’s input and supply chains – and induced through the spending on consumption and investment of the directly and indirectly generated income. The number of these jobs significantly exceeds the number of staff directly employed by the company.

The socio-economic effects of the activities of the Lenzing Group in 2022 are summarized in the table below.

Works council

The Lenzing Group’s management is committed to a transparent information policy towards the employees’ official representatives. There are local works councils at the facilities in Lenzing and Heiligenkreuz. In accordance with the Austrian Labor Constitution Act, representatives of the Lenzing AG works council at the Lenzing site have seats and voting rights on the Supervisory Board. The Lenzing AG works council represents the interests of employees at the sites in Lenzing and Heiligenkreuz, Austria. At all other sites except Thailand, there are trade union representatives from various factions and/or employee interest groups to represent the concerns of the workforce.