Our business systems, which combine our policies, management systems and metrics, translate our values into decisions and actions to achieve our business and sustainability objectives.

Alcan's affairs are supervised by a Board of Directors that acts in accordance with the provisions of the Canada Business Corporations Act. In pursuit of our governing objective of Maximizing Value, management determines the Company's strategic direction and, within this framework, individual groups and subsidiaries operate with a large degree of autonomy to achieve their goals.

We have several important policies and practices, which address the economic, environmental and social aspects of our business, including:

  • Our Worldwide Code of Employee and Business Conduct, which promotes responsible workplace and business practices;
  • Our EH&S Policy, which establishes a proactive framework for responding to environment, health and safety concerns within and outside our site boundaries;
  • Our Community Investment Policy, which outlines our efforts to contribute to people's well-being in the areas of education, science and technology, sustainability and community initiatives;
  • Our Procurement Practices, which are designed to maximize efficiencies of scale for the Company, while also ensuring fair representation of local and regional suppliers wherever possible and economical;
  • Our R&D and Product Development Practices, which focus on product and process innovation through basic and applied research, and application of the principles of product stewardship and Life Cycle Analysis.

Management systems support the implementation of our policies. We have also established some important goals and metrics for measuring our progress towards increasing economic and social value with a reduced environmental footprint. Some of the most significant goals that affect all of our business operations include:

  • Doubling shareholder value every five years through the Maximizing Value program;
  • Reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 500,000 tonnes by 2004;
  • Company-wide implementation of environmental management systems such as ISO 14001;
  • Zero work-related injuries and illnesses.

Integrating EH&S in Management and Business Systems
EH&S systems are part of a broader set of manufacturing and business processes and practices that cross business group boundaries. They are fundamental to our values, our corporate culture and our business success. In recognition of this, we have been moving to increasingly and fully integrate EH&S as a core component of Alcan's business management systems. The anticipated outcome on a company-wide basis is increased consistency of EH&S activities—closely tied to Alcan's business objectives.


SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS
We use indicators to assess our progress and establish targets, benchmark performance, and identify emerging trends.

We have financial measures to assess our profitability. Tax, procurement and employment figures measure our economic contribution to communities and Economic Value Added (EVA) determines if individual projects are actually building or destroying long-term economic value.

We have also developed and implemented environment, health and safety performance indicators.

However, these indicators cannot accurately put a value on certain community actions or even environmental responsibility. How do we measure the value of producing a material that helps to reduce end-use greenhouse gas emissions while meeting the needs of industry and society? Forward-looking indicators will help us clearly establish mid- and long-term objectives.

In this regard, Alcan participated in several initiatives with external parties, including the following:

  • GRI—the Global Reporting Initiative Measurement Working Group;
  • The Wuppertal Institute project Towards a Sustainable Aluminium Industry: Stakeholder Expectation and Core Indicators in conjunction with the European aluminium industry;
  • The Warwick Business School, University of Warwick (U.K.) project on sustainability indicators for non-ferrous metals.

The purpose of our participation is to develop a set of recognized indicators that will help us reach the goal of being able to accurately measure our corporate sustainability progress at Alcan.


Our Evolving Sustainability Framework
While we have spent much of the past decade understanding and managing the economic, environmental and social aspects of our business, these efforts have not been fully integrated into our business strategy.

During the past year, we have begun to develop a sustainability framework that brings together the financial, economic, environmental and social dimensions of our business. This approach will help us identify strategies for growing our business in a way that generates value for our shareholders and society.

The framework below provides a visual image of our current thinking about sustainability. Our values, customer focus, management systems and stakeholder involvement efforts provide the foundation we need to protect our business value in the short term and identify long-term opportunities for value creation.


© Alcan International Limited 2002

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Filling in Our Framework
Our challenge in the next few years is to make our sustainability framework real. The graphic below illustrates that we are building upon a solid foundation and that the development of our framework will be an ongoing effort in our journey towards corporate sustainability.

In the near term, we will focus on several key initiatives, including:

  • Full integration of EH&S into business management systems;
  • Ongoing improvement of EH&S management systems in our operations;
  • Improved data management and reporting systems for key performance indicators across the Company;
  • Expanded stakeholder engagement, customer-focused R&D and solution initiatives, including ongoing emphasis on product stewardship;
  • Improved safety performance through implementation of recognized H&S management systems.

We believe these efforts will make an important and measurable contribution to our company's overall business strategy of Maximizing Value.

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