Introduction

As we close our first sustainability strategic period, we realize just how far we have come.

2020/21 in brief

Progress made during the sustainability strategic period 2015­–2021

In the last five financial years, we have built a strong foundation in sustainability in line with societal expectations. We have shown leadership in our industry in several areas of our sustainability management as well. Key highlights include:

• The sustainability governance and organization were defined in a formal Sustainability Charter.
• We invested in sustainability management tools to improve our reporting processes and data quality.
• We made significant steps to live up to our commitment to respecting human rights. For example, we have conducted a human rights saliency assessment, developed our Statement of Commitment on Human Rights, and joined the Responsible Labor Initiative.
• dormakaba is one of the first big companies in the building industry to engage with suppliers to assess their social and environmental performance through independent third parties.
• We introduced the life cycle approach into our product development and published nearly 100 Environmental Product Declarations and Health Product Declarations.
• We reduced 20% of our carbon footprint versus our baseline in financial year 2017/18.
• In 2019, we received a Gold Medal for our efforts in sustainability management from the rating firm EcoVadis.
  

Letter from the CEO

Dear Stakeholders, 

Sabrina Soussan, CEO dormakaba

Sustainability stands out as a rising trend in 2021, as we have seen accelerated action by regulators towards achievement of national decarbonization goals, and investors’ increased interest in the ESG space. In my first weeks as CEO at dormakaba, I have spent a lot of time listening to our stakeholders, and they all confirm the importance of good sustainability management. Therefore, I am proud to head a company that is already a sustainability pioneer in many areas in our industry.

We continued our contribution to fight climate change by offering more green solutions for sustainable buildings and by decreasing the environmental impact of our own operations. Investments in energy-saving projects and the purchase of green electricity have resulted in decreasing our carbon footprint by 6% compared to last year. We have implemented many energy efficiency initiatives, including upgrading air compressors and boilers, for total energy savings of nearly 3,000 Megawatt hours per year.

Turning to our customers, we have been intensifying our open communication on the environmental impact of our products, notably with our new Group-wide life cycle assessment tool, that now covers over 70 products across six of our eight product clusters. This has been a great achievement due to cross-segmental collaboration with many purchasing, product management, and engineering teams across the globe. We notice increasing interest from our customers and expect the green building market to grow annually by close to 15%. By providing Environmental Product Declarations derived from the tool, we support our customers in meeting the requirements for green buildings certifications and achieving their own sustainability goals.

Furthermore, I am pleased to share that dormakaba is the first company within the access solutions industry to have emissions targets in line with climate science and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative. Achieving this has required over two years of dedicated hard work from many colleagues to expand our carbon accounting to cover 95% of our operational emissions and to develop a carbon inventory for our value chain emissions, including for nearly 400 energy-consuming products.

Sustainability is, of course, also very much about people: I care for the health and safety of our employees. We must and will progress here as well. I am heartened by some good practices I saw, starting with the rigorous measures we took to keep our employees safe during the pandemic. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of our team in Nogales, Mexico which I have recently visited. The health and safety team has received external government recognition for their management of the pandemic two years in a row, and they achieved almost 500 days with no accidents or injuries.

On a Group-wide basis, we have now stepped up the focus on monitoring injury incidents, addressing their root causes and taking corrective actions: in the reporting year, we launched over 200 corrective actions to reduce future incidences. And the tone comes from the top, as safety is the first item discussed in my monthly management meetings with each business.

As you know, we are now closing a five-year strategic period, with strong achievements and progress made in sustainability. I am grateful that our efforts in responsible business practices have been increasingly recognized externally, through improved scores in ESG ratings and thought leadership. Beyond our strong conviction that sustainability brings value to the company, these recognitions motivate us to further drive our contributions to a sustainable future.

Looking ahead, I am personally committed to further drive sustainability and to place it at the core of our vision and strategy. As a consequence, we will expand our sustainability strategy with revised material topics, newly defined focus areas and ambitious targets: we will, for instance, incorporate our emissions targets in our new strategy and, more generally, increase our efforts to contribute to a low-carbon society.

Please learn more about our performance in this report and “stay tuned” about the next chapter of our sustainability journey.

Sincerely yours,

Sabrina Soussan
CEO dormakaba

About dormakaba

Worldwide presence

Our business

dormakaba makes access in life smart and secure. We are one of the leading companies in the global access solutions market. With our comprehensive portfolio and strong brands, we offer our customers products, solutions, and services for anything related to access to buildings and rooms from a single source. dormakaba has distribution channels and production facilities in all of the industries’ key markets and will accelerate global expansion through a strengthened presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. dormakaba is a growth-oriented company with a strong pool shareholder group that will ensure our long-term strategy. Under the leadership of the new CEO, Sabrina Soussan, who started on 1 April 2021, a strategy review process has been initiated. Details of a revised strategy are expected to be communicated in the second quarter of the financial year 2021/22.

The current strategy is based on the following pillars:

• Providing a superior offering of products and services to meet the needs of customers and their installations along the entire life cycle;
• Expanded presence in existing markets, vertical extension of these markets, and expansion into new markets;
• Achieving enterprise excellence by improving processes and driving efficiency and competitiveness along the entire value chain;
• Leadership in innovation for superior customer value;
• Active management of the portfolio of business activities and disciplined pursuit of options for corporate transactions (acquisitions, divestments, joint ventures);
• Efficient deployment of employees: having “the right people in the right roles”.

These strategic pillars are based on the two foundations of (1) sustainability and (2) enhancing the global brand power.

Operating Model

dormakaba has divided the areas of business in which the company is globally active into five segments. Access Solutions (AS), which comprises four segments, is structured by region: AS AMER (North and South America), AS APAC (Asia Pacific), AS DACH (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), and AS EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). The segment Key & Wall Solutions is globally positioned and consists of the business units Key Systems and Movable Walls.

Our value chain

Our employees^{1 )}

Employees by contract type

Employees by employment type

1. Headcount as at 30 June 2021, excluding apprentices, trainees, interns, and contract workers
   

The key performance indicators for the above human resources data and the fluctuation figures available in the Employment chapter are based on 100% of dormakaba Group employees as at 30 June 2021. The total workforce in this scope consisted of 15,250 employees, based on headcount. While the majority of our employees work full-time and on the basis of permanent contracts, 6% are engaged on a part-time basis. Over 57% of the employees in this scope are covered by collective bargaining agreements. In addition, dormakaba developed nearly 250 apprentices, trainees and interns, and employed over 1,800 contract workers at the sites in scope.

The other social and all environmental key performance indicators found in this report represent 95% of dormakaba employees as at 30 June 2021, which are located at the 102 sites in the reporting coverage (see Outro for a map of included sites).