Firmly establishing responsible behavior throughout the company is one of the basic principles of company management at Merck. In order to sustainably implement these principles, a Corporate Responsibility committee discusses relevant overarching issues. This committee includes representatives from the individual divisions and Group functions such as Environment, Health, Safety, Security, Quality, as well as Communications, Humans Resources and Legal.
Against the background of the UN‘s endorsement of the Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and their integration into the principles of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for multinational companies, Merck conducted a Group-wide analysis in order to ascertain the subsequent new requirements not covered by existing guidelines and directives.
In 2012, Merck continued to be a member of the FTSE4Good Index, a leading international stock index for sustainable investment. Companies are included in this index based on criteria such as effective environmental protection as well as adherence to and support of human rights principles. As in 2011, Merck continued to be included in the sustainability index of Deutsche Börse.
Corporate responsibility activities and key issues are selected on the basis of materiality analyses. These activities and issues are described on the following pages as well as in our extensive Corporate Responsibility Report, which we publish regularly. Merck conducts these materiality analyses at regular intervals in order to identify and prioritize the sustainability topics that are most important to the company. The analysis took into account the perspectives of various stakeholder groups, including, for instance, employees, business associates, site neighbors, and investors.
