About this Report
This is Johnson Matthey’s seventh annual report covering social, environmental and ethical performance. Published in July 2009, it covers the financial year from 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2009. Our previous Sustainability Report was published on 31st July 2008.
Sustainability is a core part of our business strategy. In December 2007, we launched Sustainability 2017, a long term vision for the whole group that is playing an important role in helping Johnson Matthey to set out the direction and aspirations for what we want to achieve in the future.
Sustainability 2017 was defined following an assessment of the risks, major impacts and future commercial opportunities open to the business. As part of the process in developing the vision, five elements of sustainability were identified: social; environmental, health and safety, governance and financial. In defining the scope and content of this report we have focused on these elements of sustainability and on the aspects outlined in our Sustainability 2017 Vision.
Johnson Matthey has also consulted with the GRI sustainability reporting guidelines and applied them in an appropriate context to the group by examination of the definition, explanation notes and self diagnosis tests to ensure a comprehensive, accurate and complete account when assessed against the reporting criteria. In addition, a well structured management approach in defining the report content and context has taken place in early 2009.
The report has been developed to incorporate the group’s significant economic, environmental and social impacts and set within the context of the Bruntland definition of sustainability (1987) and our own Sustainability 2017 Vision.
Understanding the relevance of local, national, regional and global issues, regulation and legislation is taken into account when considering reporting against materiality and in setting priorities for reporting.
The GRI guidance notes for appropriately setting the boundary for sustainability reporting, including the use of the ‘decision tree for boundary setting', were consulted.
There are no limitations on the scope or boundary of the report. The information presented in the report covers the sustainability activities and performance of Johnson Matthey’s global operations and includes all wholly owned and majority owned subsidiaries. The report also explains how we are building sustainability into our business planning and decision making processes and how we manage social, environmental and ethical matters across the group.
Data measurement techniques including calculations for social, environmental and health and safety performance have used the GRI indicator protocols as appropriate. Any exceptions are noted in the report.
In previous years’ reports, we presented human resources and environmental performance data on a calendar year basis. All other performance data was presented on a financial year basis (1st April to 31st March). In this year’s report and going forward, we will now report all performance data on a financial year basis. This decision was made to allow us to align all our internal reporting processes. We hope it will also simplify the interpretation and comparison of data for our stakeholders. As a result of this change, human resources and environmental performance data also includes information for the period 1st January 2008 to 31st March 2008 so as to present the full picture of our performance since last year’s report.
Further details on our data collection and verification processes can be found in the Performance Summary and Verification and Assurance sections of this report.