Industrie Chimiche Forestali S p A : Sustainability Report 2020 ( 1,29 MB )

2020 Sustainability Report

We are invisible! But we are everywhere!

Table of contents

Letter to Stakeholders .......................................................................................................................................	3
The process for the preparation of the Sustainability Report...........................................................................	4
1. A history spanning over 100 years ............................................................................................................	8
1.1	Made in Italy since 1918....................................................................................................................	8
1.2	Our organisation................................................................................................................................	9
1.2.1	Governance..............................................................................................................................	10
1.2.2	Economic performance ...........................................................................................................	11
1.2.3	Associations .............................................................................................................................	13
2. Our invisible strength ..............................................................................................................................	14
2.1	A high-quality production process...................................................................................................	14
2.2	Careful selection of materials..........................................................................................................	17
2.3	Our team..........................................................................................................................................	20
3. Attention to the environment and safety ...............................................................................................	26
3.1	Environmental protection ...............................................................................................................	26
3.1.1	Water withdrawal and discharge ............................................................................................	27
3.1.2	Waste.......................................................................................................................................	28
3.1.3	Emissions of pollutants............................................................................................................	29
3.1.4	Energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions..............................................................	30
3.2	The health and safety of workers and customers ...........................................................................	31
Methodological note .......................................................................................................................................	35
GRI Content Index............................................................................................................................................	38

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Letter to Stakeholders

Dear readers,

More than one hundred years after the establishment of Industrie Chimiche Forestali, I am proud to present you our first annual review of our Sustainability Report, which is not intended to meet a legal obligation but rather to tell us and share with you our future commitments.

Demonstrating far-sightedness and a strong focus on emerging social and environmental issues, since 1998 we have decided to join the "Responsible Care" Programme, which promotes the Sustainable Development of the Chemical Industry worldwide according to values and behaviour oriented towards health, safety and the environment. This voluntary programme, launched globally since the eighties, represents excellence on the industrial scene: a unique, ethical and sustainable way of working and creating a corporate culture at the same time, improving company performance in terms of occupational health and safety and environmental protection.

This growing attention led us to offer our customers increasingly eco-friendly products without compromising their functionality and performance. We have in fact been working for years on the replacement of hazardous substances present in the formulation of our products and on the development of eco-friendly and low VOC adhesives, challenging working methods and technologies consolidated over time.

At Industrie Chimiche Forestali, there is a strong sense of belonging and teamwork. We strongly believe in the value of our people to whom we guarantee the opportunity of a qualified job and on which we invest to enhance their talents. This investment translates into a constant commitment to their personal and professional growth through numerous training activities.

In line with this spirit, we operate with respect for the safety not only of our employees but also of our customers and the surrounding population. And particularly in the year that has just ended, due to the viral pandemic, with great apprehension for everyone, but with determination and moral and professional energy. Properly trained personnel and the development of processes and plants with high standards of quality and safety are the prerequisite that we put before any other consideration of economic opportunity. Quality, environment and safety are inseparable aspects of our entrepreneurial activity, which are also reflected in the maintenance and continuous improvement of Management System certifications, some of which were obtained more than twenty years ago and have therefore become a common working method for all our employees.

Our continuous investments in the research and development of innovative products, in plant design and in the training and safety of our employees guarantee us the possibility to grow in the medium-long term and the ability to operate in the global market.

For all these reasons, at Industrie Chimiche Forestali, we have made the integration of economic, environmental and social sustainability into the business our strong point, demonstrating on the market a better ability to be competitive as well as dynamic and flexible. We can only hope that what we have been doing for years at Industrie Chimiche Forestali is an incentive for all of you and that it will allow us to build a virtuous chain able to guarantee the end customer a safe, environmentally friendly and ethical product.

Chief Executive Officer

Guido Cami

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The process for the preparation of the Sustainability Report

Industrie Chimiche Forestali S.p.A. (hereinafter referred to as ICF or Group) has decided to continue its sustainability process through the drafting of a second Sustainability Report (hereinafter also referred to as "Report") with the aim of strengthening and making increasingly transparent its communication towards its stakeholders and describing the main information and initiatives relating to environmental, social and economic aspects that have characterised the Group for over 100 years.

The process undertaken by the Group to update the Report involved top management and the various corporate functions in the preparation of the document and the collection of data and information useful for the preparation of the Report.

The Sustainability Report of ICF was prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Reporting Standards (in short "GRI Standards"), the sustainability reporting standards whose reference principles and indicators are the most widely used and applied internationally.

The activities underlying the preparation of the Sustainability Report are described below, i.e. the identification and prioritisation of stakeholders involved in the sphere of ICF and the analysis of non-financial topics relevant (or "material") for the Group in line with the GRI Standards.

Our stakeholders

The identification and prioritisation of the Group's stakeholders represents a substantial step towards the subsequent identification of the most relevant sustainability topics on which to focus the contents of the Sustainability Report.

The different stakeholders of ICF were mapped last year on the basis of the analysis of the company structure, business activities, value chain and network of relationships existing around the Group. Subsequently, through the involvement of top management, the stakeholders identified had been classified according to the following criteria in order to give it a priority level:

• impact on ICF: ability of the stakeholder to influence strategic or operational decisions of the Group;
• ICF dependency: the level of stakeholder dependency on the choices, products and activities of the Group.

For the 2020 Sustainability Report, both the identified stakeholder categories and their prioritisation are confirmed.

During 2020, the company's communication with stakeholders was enhanced through numerous press releases and the overhaul of the website. In line with the progressive containment of the Covid-19 pandemic emergency, in the coming years the Group intends to promote communication and bilateral dialogue initiatives in the coming years with the aim of establishing and consolidating a relationship of trust and continuous dialogue.

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Material topics

A key step in the preparation of the Sustainability Report according to the GRI Standards is the identification of material sustainability topics on which to focus reporting.

To prepare the 2019 Sustainability Report, ICF had carried out an initial mapping of sustainability topics potentially relevant to the Group on the basis of a series of activities aimed at analysing the context in which the Group operates (benchmark analysis, analysis of the press review, analysis of sustainability trends). Subsequently, the results obtained had been cross-referenced with contributions received from top management and the various corporate functions and with the set of sustainability topics indicated in the GRI Standards in order to define a universe of potentially relevant topics.

With the aim of identifying material topics among those potentially relevant, ICF then carried out the materiality analysis, i.e. it assessed the various sustainability topics identified according to their relevance for the Group and its stakeholders as required by the reporting standard.

In particular, through the holding of a workshop attended by the Group's top management, it had been possible to define an order of priority for sustainability topics based on their relevance to ICF. The Group assigned priorities to topics by taking into account not only the qualified opinion of the key figures of the Group, but also ICF's formal commitment to the topics submitted for analysis, the strategic priorities of the company and the main areas of environmental, economic and social impact of the organisation.

For the 2020 Sustainability Report, in order to determine the relevance of sustainability topics from a stakeholder perspective, the following context analyses were carried out once again and account was taken of the priority levels resulting from:

• the benchmark analysis with respect to comparable Italian and international companies and customers of the Group operating in the main ICF sectors (automotive, flexible packaging, footwear and leather goods), which has made it possible to distinguish the sustainability topics that are most frequently dealt with on the websites and in public documents;
• the analysis of pressures in the field of sustainability for the chemical industry through the identification of the topics most discussed in the publications of the main industry associations (Federchimica, FEICA, etc.) and some international organisations (RobecoSam, SASB, etc.);
• the analysis of sustainability trends at global level through the mapping of the sustainability topics most considered by major stock exchanges, sustainability rating agencies (DJSI, MSCI, etc.), international organisations (GRI, World Economic Forum, etc.) and government institutions (EU, UN, etc.).

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