Reebok 2012 Annual Report Download - page 76

adidas Group
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2012 Annual Report
To Our Shareholders
54
2012
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01.6
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Corporate Governance Report including the Declaration on Corporate Governance
Suggestions of the German Corporate Governance
Code fulfilled
The Code suggests that in the Corporate Governance Report statements
are also made on those suggestions that can be deviated from without
disclosure. These statements have been integral to our reporting for
some time. The suggestion that Supervisory Board meetings shall be
prepared separately by shareholder representatives and employee
representatives, which our Supervisory Board follows if necessary,
no longer exists as a suggestion in the new version of the Code dated
May 15, 2012. We are thus now fully compliant with all suggestions.
Relevant management practices
Performance, passion, integrity and diversity are the values of our Group.
They are actively lived by our Executive Board members, Supervisory
Board members and our employees and have been incorporated into our
Code of Conduct. Our business activities are oriented towards the legal
systems in the various countries and markets in which we operate. This
implies a high level of social and environmental responsibility.
Compliance with working and social standards: The development
of company guidelines with regard to social minimum standards,
work safety as well as health and environmental protection and the
monitoring thereof at the production facilities of the adidas Group and
its business partners is an integral component of our corporate policy.
Our Group has a separate Code of Conduct for the supply chain, the
“Workplace Standards” :
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WWW.ADIDAS-GROUP.COM/SUSTAINABILITY. These
standards are oriented towards the conventions of the International
Labour Organization (ILO) and follow the code of conduct of the World
Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI). They help us to
only choose such business partners who fulfil the Group’s Workplace
Standards and business practices. We have appointed an expert team
especially for the coordination of compliance with, and control of, the
Workplace Standards. We report on our sustainability programme in this
Annual Report and publish more detailed sustainability reports regularly
on our corporate website :
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WWW.ADIDAS-GROUP.COM/SUSTAINABILITY
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SEE
SUSTAINABILITY, P. 117.
Environmental responsibility and social commitment: For long-term,
successful management of the Group, sustainable actions that embrace,
in particular, social and environmental responsibility towards present
and future generations are essential. Our Social & Environmental
Affairs department, with its worldwide team, has for many years been
dealing with the rights of employees in the supply chain as well as
with the coordination of the environmental strategy and product safety
management.
In line with the Group-wide sustainability programme, the adidas
Group developed the Environmental Strategy 2015. The objective of
the Strategy is to make processes more efficient and environmentally
friendly at every stage of the value chain. This ranges from areas such
as product design, development and sourcing, logistics and IT systems,
to improving the efficiency of company-owned locations. Optimising
the value chain makes it possible for the adidas Group to offer more
sustainable products and improve the company’s environmental
performance in the future. With our Environmental Strategy, we have the
long-term goal of becoming a carbon-neutral company on a global level.
A key element of this goal is the introduction of uniform environmental
management systems at company-owned locations, in compliance with
ISO 14001 :
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WWW.ADIDAS-GROUP.COM/SUSTAINABILITY.
We strive to support the positive development of the regions in which
our Group operates by cooperating with charity organisations in order
to improve the quality of life for people, especially children and young
people, by means of sports. Moreover, we are committed to education,
science and humanitarian initiatives in various projects worldwide.
With the objective of making affordable shoes available for the poorest
of the poor, we started our cooperation with Nobel Peace Laureate
Professor Muhammad Yunus. The results from the pilot projects in
Bangladesh and India, however, show that we still have a long way
to go to the production of a correspondingly affordable shoe. We are
thus reviewing our initial strategy and critically reflecting whether it is
possible to sustainably realise a social business model in the low-price
segment. We will intensively utilise the knowledge gained for the further
development of future sourcing models.
Compliance and risk management within the
adidas Group
Our Compliance Management System is closely aligned with the
Group’s Risk Management System. Together, these systems create the
organisational requirements for Group-wide awareness of the respective
governing law as well as of our internal rules and guidelines and for
ensuring their observance. We see compliance as all-encompassing,
spanning all business functions throughout the entire value chain, from
supply chain through to the end consumer.
Compliance: In order to ensure standardised and exemplary actions
and behaviour, in 2006, we introduced our Code of Conduct, which is
applicable in all regions and business areas. It stipulates guidelines for
behaviour in everyday work and is available both on our website and on
our intranet.
Further information on the principles of our management
More information on topics covered in this report can be found on our website at
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W WW.ADIDAS-GROUP.COM including:
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Code of Conduct
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Sustainability
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Social commitment
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Information and documents on the Annual General Meeting
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Directors’ dealings
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Accounting and annual audit