Listening is the beginning and the end of a good dialogue. As part of the expansion of our sustainability management, we want to further integrate dialogue into our relationships with the most important stakeholder groups. Both internally and externally.

We are in daily contact with our customers, for example in projects in which we develop solutions together. Customer satisfaction is always our foremost priority. Since 2017, we have used anonymous surveys to collect key information as part of our dialogue with customers.

These customer surveys will be repeated every two years in the future. They also enable us to go into considerable detail – we want to know which aspects of collaboration our customers appreciate most and how they compare to other competitors. The survey results are for internal use only and will not be published. Nevertheless, we can say that feedback was immensely positive across all categories. At the same time and as expected, the respondents also showed us that there is room for improvement.

In addition to this, in October 2018 we hosted the TOP Industry Forum, a two-day event for production companies from all over Germany. Among other things, the event’s slogan was what motivated us to bring the event to Lohne. “The Sustainable Company: Between Economics and Ecology.” This reflected the developments in our own company and we saw an opportunity to tell people about our approaches whilst simultaneously learning from others. This wish was fulfilled in many discussions and conversations.

The event was attended by customers, competitors and representatives from the fields of science and local politics. We also took advantage of this specialist forum to implement two dialogue formats. On the one hand, we openly debated the positive and negative effects of our industry on people, the environment and the economy with some of our competitors. On the other hand, we asked selected representatives from our main stakeholder groups about sustainability strategies.

Longer, bilateral interviews were held with ten of these experts after the event. Through this, we aimed to stimulate discussion by offering our thoughts on what we see as the most important aspects of sustainability. And we were certainly given some significant considerations and thoughts in return, which we have incorporated into our sustainability strategy. But even more important was the underlying message that we are actively seeking dialogue and offer external experts the opportunity to have their say.

One month later, in November 2018, we organised the first Researchers’ Sunday at Lohne Industrial Museum. We used this opportunity to engage in dialogue with the local community. Residents were able to write their thoughts and suggestions on post-it notes and stick them to a large pin board. Especially in times of prevalent public discussion on plastic, it was important for us to understand how local people view the subject and what they think about it.

We also took our internal dialogue tool – the “blue sofa” – to the Industrial Museum. This sofa offers a space within our company for management representatives to meet with employees for informal discussions.

Through our informative discussion forum on Researchers’ Sunday, we wanted to demonstrate that we actively seek dialogue and are not afraid to confront critical matters. Indeed, we often ask ourselves many of these questions and dedicate our daily efforts to finding the answers. The fact that the subjects are also questioned outside the company spurs us on to find a better solution in terms of sustainability.