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Sustainability Approach
At Alcoa, sustainability is defined as using our values to build financial success, environmental excellence, and social responsibility through partnerships in order to deliver net long-term benefits to our shareowners, employees, customers, suppliers, and the communities in which we operate.
We recognize there are many definitions of sustainability, the most well-known one being "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland Report, 1987). However, we felt it necessary to go further and define sustainability in a way that takes it to the operational levels within our company.
Our commitment to sustainability has a long history and is evident every day—from the way we live our values to our strategic framework for sustainability supported by clear targets for measuring progress toward achievement of our vision for 2020. We believe that addressing sustainability will make us a better company, and a better company becomes a company of choice for governments and communities. This designation leads to better access to land, markets, capital, resources, and people.
Our goal is to integrate sustainability concepts into our processes so they become part of how we do business. Key components to achieving this goal are understanding the expectations of our stakeholders and remaining transparent in reporting our progress.
We consider each employee a sustainability champion. Supporting them are sustainability professionals as well as individuals who are experts in various aspects of sustainability, such as environment and community relations.
We have developed a corporate approach to sustainability and continued to integrate that into our overall business strategy in 2007. Due to the decentralized nature of Alcoa, implementation primarily occurs at the local level in accordance with our 2020 Strategic Framework for Sustainability.
Many of our business units are using complementary sustainability indicators around their sustainability challenges. They are also using workshops and other methods to engage customers, management, employees, communities, and other stakeholders in sustainability initiatives, leading to strategies and action plans. In addition, we use a variety of methods to educate our employees on sustainability.
For example, the board of directors and regional president of our Brazilian operations established the Brazilian Sustainability Steering Committee in December 2007. The committee's main objectives are to improve sustainability governance with the involvement and visibility of top management; increase accountability of business units and locations; create opportunities for leaders to share best practices while increasing their knowledge on sustainability; and accelerate the process of integrating sustainability into the organization.
In Europe, a sustainability director appointed in 2007 will work with all the business units and countries in Europe to more fully integrate sustainability into their day-to-day activities.
Additional information on how we are implementing sustainability at the local level can be found on the following country and region pages: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Guinea, Iceland, Jamaica, and Suriname.
At the corporate level, we take a leadership role on sustainability issues that are not only important to us but also to our industry and beyond. For example, climate change is clearly a global challenge, and it is our key sustainability issue as a company.
In early 2007, we joined nine highly esteemed U.S.-based companies and four leading environmental organizations to call on the U.S. government to quickly enact strong national legislation to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. The partners formed an unprecedented alliance called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) to send a clear signal to lawmakers that legislative action is urgently needed.
In addition to being a founding member of USCAP, a senior Alcoa employee testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in 2007 to express Alcoa's support of the America's Climate Security Act. We are also partnering with or joining organizations focused on global climate change. These include the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the World Resources Institute Green Power Market Development Group (charter member), and the World Economic Forum Global GHG Registry. We are also actively involved in the development of greenhouse gas accounting standards in conjunction with the International Aluminium Institute, International Standards Organization, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In early 2008, we became a founding reporter on the Climate Registry, a non-profit organization that measures and publicly reports greenhouse gas emissions in a common, accurate, and transparent manner consistent across industry sectors and borders. Alcoa was among the first companies to join the organization. We have also participated in all five surveys performed by the Carbon Disclosure Project—a not-for-profit organization supporting institutional investors who seek to better understand climate-related risks and opportunities from the world's largest companies. We have routinely ranked among the highest ratings within the metals and mining industry in this survey.
Other key sustainability initiatives in 2007 included the following:
- Formation of a pilot sustainability report review panel to help us identify gaps in our reporting and take an initial step toward incorporating third-party assurance into our process.
 more
- Development of an ethics and compliance Leaders' Guide for all global employees who are in a position to supervise others in the organization. more
- Development of a diversity performance initiative aligned with our corporate diversity strategy and inclusion by each business unit. more
- Announcement of a goal to increase the North American used beverage can recycling rate to 75% by 2015. more
- Creation of the Health Impact Assessment process for new projects and expansions. more
We were recognized for these and other efforts through inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the sixth time and being named one of the most sustainable companies in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for the third (2007) and fourth (2008) years in a row. (See other awards.)
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