Value chain

Sustainability has long been integral to GF’s corporate culture and business. GF acknowledges that its role and responsibility in society extend beyond its business operations and include a broad range of stakeholders. GF addresses the wide spectrum of sustainability topics in all steps of its value chain. The Corporation and the three divisions contribute to various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

GF’s value chain at a glance

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Materials and equipment sourcing

GF’s decisions in designing solutions for its customers have direct implications for its supply chain, from a social and environmental perspective. GF recognizes this and works to increase transparency in its complex purchasing network and to engage with its business partners to ensure adherence to GF’s standards and expectations.

Operational tasks over which GF has direct control

Good corporate governance lays the foundation for how GF conducts business. GF’s over 200-year history is built on customer-centricity and respect for the people who run and sustain its operations. GF strives to deliver superior quality and to create added value for customers while staying abreast of technological developments, innovating, and evolving with the times.

The GF organization brings together a wide range of businesses and cultures. Consequently, it fosters a respectful, engaging, inclusive, and affirming work environment for its diverse family of employees.

Being an industrial company gives GF a crucial responsibility: to have in place rigorous safety standards at its facilities, to embrace continuous improvement, and to do its utmost to operate accident-free. GF therefore places a particularly strong emphasis on embedding safety into every one of its facilities worldwide. It also invests continually to upgrade its production and office locations to make them more efficient and prevent adverse environmental impacts.

Sales/distribution of products and services

Sustainability is engineered into the solutions GF designs for its customers. GF continuously engages with customers to understand their needs, to meet and exceed their expectations for suppliers’ social and environmental performance, and strives to optimize its logistics processes to be more convenient for customers and environmentally friendlier.

In the year under review, GF’s management tasked the Corporate Sustainability team with conducting a comprehensive assessment of the company’s Scope 3 emissions. These consist of the GHG emissions attributable to GF’s supply chain, its products in their use phase, and product distribution. The assessment will offer insights into how to design and distribute GF’s products and solutions in ways that reduce these emissions.

Product use and end-of-life management

GF’s products add value for the customers by reducing their pain points and meeting their sustainability needs during the use phase. At the same time, the Corporation is also continuously working on incorporating considerations for what happens with GF’s products at the end of their useful life into its R&D processes.

More information on GF’s products and solutions

To underscore its commitment to responsible business conduct, GF has been a signatory of the UN Global Compact (UNGC), the world’s largest sustainability network for companies and organizations, since 2015. Its commitment to the UN Global Compact’s ten principles for human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption is reaffirmed on an annual basis through the “Communication on Progress” report. In addition, the guidelines for multinational companies issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as the agreements of the International Labour Organization (ILO) form the basis for GF’s understanding of corporate responsibility.

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