AkzoNobel Underlines Sustainability Leadership

06-Sep-08

AkzoNobel has been ranked as one of the chemicals industry leaders on the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes (DJSI), underlining the company's ongoing commitment to improving its sustainability performance. The latest rankings - published today - reveal that AkzoNobel has achieved a leading position on the influential index having scored 86%, just 1 percent behind new sector leaders BASF. AkzoNobel topped the index in 2007 and has now been listed for the last four years. "We congratulate BASF and are pleased to see that other companies are taking sustainability as seriously as ourselves," said AkzoNobel CEO Hans Wijers. "It's important to point out, however, that while being ranked as one of the industry leaders provides welcome recognition for our efforts, the continual improvement of our sustainability performance is not driven by the desire to top rankings or win awards. "We are committed to doing business in a sustainable way because it is crucial to our economic future and the success of our customers. So we will continue striving for excellence and will keep improving, knowing that as one of the industry leaders we are certainly on the right track." Earlier this year, the company carried out a sustainability assessment of its entire product portfolio, which revealed that 18% of AkzoNobel's turnover was generated by so-called eco-premium solutions (competitively priced premium products offering superior performance, with greater environmental benefits than current mainstream alternatives). The company intends to increase this figure to 30% by 2015. Regarded as one of the world's foremost sustainability indices, the DJSI World Index benchmarks the sustainability performance of leading companies based on environmental, social and economic performance, including forward-looking indicators. Company Press Release