Dialogue with our stakeholder groups

The needs of all stakeholder groups are currently already incorporated but they are analyzed to varying degrees of depth. SolarWorld carries out an internal analysis for all stakeholder groups, based on information available within the company and in external studies. Every year, we conduct surveys among our employees, our customers and our suppliers. Systematic customer surveys are carried out among our wafer customers, wholesalers and installers. So far, end customers have only been interviewed on an ad-hoc basis since such surveys require a lot of time and effort. In the mid-term, we hope to do this for our other stakeholder groups, too. We also maintain close links with the communities at our sites: for instance in Freiberg at the Open Day for employees and their families at the occasion of Solar Factory III’s inauguration or at the Open Day in the industrial area East at the occasion of the Science Night. In our Solar2World projects, we work closely with the local stakeholders (e.g. communities and NGOs) in order to offer solutions that will give the population the maximum benefit and can be continued by the local people themselves after completion of the project.

Thanks to our membership in associations and interest groups as well as our cooperative initiatives with scientific institutions, we maintain a regular dialogue on social policy issues with stakeholders. We exchange ideas on topics like Life Cycle, Recycling and Sustainability with the EPIA (Sustainability Group), Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), as well as within the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), and we participate in IEA Task 12 (Sustainability, Health & Safety). We also make our expertise available by way of panel discussions for example at PVSEC in Hamburg and Tokyo. The anti-dumping complaint in the U.S. was also one of the main topics of discussion with various stakeholder groups.

When compiling this report, we requested and took into account specialist feedback from rating agencies and sustainability experts. Since 2007, we have also submitted our report to the voting for the Corporate Register Reporting Award presented by the online directory CorporateRegister.com www.corporateregister.com. We also offer all stakeholders the opportunity to contact us any time via placement(at)solarworld(dot)de or sustainability(at)solarworld(dot)de. Since 2009, stakeholders have had the alternative option of sending us an email – even anonymously if they so wish – via a contact form on the website.

The Communication on Progress achieved along the 10 Principles of the Global Compact is made through group reporting procedures, which means it is available to all stakeholders. Stakeholder initiatives can even influence the implementation of these Principles, for example via networks built by/with stakeholders or standards requested by stakeholders.

As a result, the company is aware of the needs and able to take them into account in its decision-making processes.

Stakeholder mapping

The above-mentioned illustration offers an overview on our stakeholder groups (Stakeholder Mapping) along the AA1000 standard’s scheme. The observance of this process standard is to ensure stakeholder groups are involved in the sustainable corporate management. The standard is offered by the not-for-profit member association "Institute of Social and Ethical AccountAbility".