E.ON’s corporate culture revolves around five basic values. One describes our corporate responsibility. To ensure that employees proactively adopt these values in daily working life, we have also introduced more detailed guidelines for individual units. Four new guidelines valid groupwide provide our employees with a binding operational framework.

In 2007, we laid the groundwork for the development of an integrated environment and climate protection guideline to be submitted to the E.ON AG Board of Management for approval in 2008. From then on the guideline will be compulsory for all market units and will cover two important fields of action: the area of climate protection, which covers our activities for neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy efficiency and CO₂-free electricity generation. Operational environmental protection, biodiversity and the protection of the oceans fall under the umbrella of environmental protection.

Along with price and performance, CR standards also figure in E.ON’s decision making process for procurement. We expect the companies providing us with products and services to safeguard human rights and fair working conditions, to promote environmental protection and maintain transparent business relationships.

 

In March 2007, E.ON approved key principles required for establishing a responsible procurement policy and incorporated these into our general purchasing terms. On the basis of this, suitable instruments and procedures were developed in 2007 to enable our suppliers’ compliance with the principles of the Global Compact to be taken into consideration in purchasing strategies and when selecting suppliers.

 

The creation of risk profiles for important suppliers (including CR related risks) and a regular evaluation of their services by the recipient are part of the scope of the newly developed procedure. In addition we also carry out audits at the suppliers’ facilities.

It is our goal to make E.ON the safest company in the energy sector worldwide. We are working hard to successfully implement our Safety Strategy with the introduction of numerous measures. We created a new Health and Safety department in the CR area of Corporate Center in 2007. The department harmonizes and manages all safety-relevant processes across the group. In October 2007, the Action Plan Safety came into force. Its aim is to launch a groupwide safety management system on the basis of the existing management system at market unit level.

Community involvement encompasses our social involvement in the communities where we are based. In 2007 we launched a groupwide policy. Our Community Working Group, consisting of colleagues from across our business, is tasked with bringing our community involvement strategy to life in all our existing and new market units.