Sustainability Report

Reporting history, scope and basis

 

History

Kuehne+Nagel published its first Sustainability Report in 2016. Sustainability Report 2021 covers our sustainability activities and performances for the calendar year 2021. It is Kuehne+Nagel’s 6^th Sustainability Report.

Independent assurance

The Sustainability Report 2021 has been independently assured for the first time based on limited assurance. You will find more details on the assurance statement from DNV.

Reporting standards

Throughout the report, some historic data and information have been included to provide context and to illustrate performance trends. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Index at the end of this report makes reference to the GRI Core standards fulfilled by Kuehne+Nagel. The GRI content index is provided here.

In this report, for the second year, Kuehne+Nagel includes reporting on The Ten principles of the UN Global Compact (UNGC). Our Sustainability Report is our annual Communication on Progress report (COP) to the UNGC, and it incorporates information on our sustainability activities according to the UNGC Active Level criteria.

Kuehne+Nagel seeks external assurance of its direct greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1), indirect greenhouse gas emissions (scope 2), energy consumption and production, waste generation and water consumption from our company-owned sites.

Kuehne+Nagel has decided to gain the external assurance, validation and certification from Det Norske Veritas (DNV) on sustainable topics.
For the first independent assurance audit for the Kuehne+Nagel’s Sustainability Report 2021, DNV conducted assurance audit for three sites on five defined KPIs:

• Energy (total electricity in million KWh)
• Waste (total waste in ‘000 tons)
• Water (total water use in sqm)
• Time Incident Frequency (LTIF)
• Social (personnel attrition, unwanted)

Reporting scope and basis for reporting

This report covers Kuehne+Nagel’s global operations including activities occurring at all of our facilities, owned and leased, over which we have operational control unless otherwise noted. The scope of health and safety reporting includes facilities and operations over which Kuehne+Nagel has management control, including warehouses and offices.

Environmental data presented in this report have changed from prior disclosures due to changes of business operations, including mergers and acquisitions that concluded during the reporting year. Data has been collated from over 1,294 locations spread across 106 countries. We have a robust data collection and management process in place, as assured by DNV for specific KPIs.

This Sustainability Report was reviewed and approved by Kuehne+Nagel’s Board prior to publication.

The scope of this report addresses the full range of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects of our organisation. We have considered the GRI’s reporting principles for defining report content. With the new materiality assessment for 2021 we identified and reported on the most material topics related to our business. The assessment was used to help prioritise our resources and investments in the context of the changing business environment and importance to external stakeholders.

The boundary for all material aspects was considered to be within the organisation. We have considered the principles of stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, materiality, completeness, balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, clarity and reliability and believe that this report meets these principles.

Calculation methodologies
 

Time Incident Frequency (LTIF)
Lost Time Injury Frequency represents the number of Lost Time Injuries per 1 million working hours and over a rolling period of 12 months. Lost time injuries are defined as work-related injuries resulting in a fatality or lost workday case. For lost workday cases, incidents incurred by external parties present in our premises are also taken into account.

Incidents are recorded after they occur. Depending on the severity of the incident, reporting to (top) management takes place within 24 hours or every quarter. Internal auditing and due diligence checks are assured the data quality at the national, regional, and global levels.

Environmental data
Environmental data is gathered in the Emex Global Facility Carbon Calculator (GFCC) system. The most common use of the Emex GFCC Tool will be the user entering monthly data for the site. Depending on the site configuration, the user may have only a few entries to make monthly, or they may have several different types of entries to make. Sites are encouraged to obtain and enter all available data for normalisers (FTE, facility space, throughput measure). Normalisers are used for reporting purposes allowing the organisation to show the usage of utilities and CO2 emissions by each. Utilities are the feeders to CO2 Emissions within the site boundaries. It is required that the site track each of these wherever possible using invoices and meter readings online.

Unlike the Utilities category, datasets in the Waste and Water do not feed CO2 emissions. Still, they are tracked to support our environmental goals supporting the reduction of landfill waste and water consumption and increased recycling. All relevant datasets in this category must be tracked when possible in support of Kuehne+Nagel’s Environmental Management System and Targets.

The Transport category tracks distance, fuel, efficiency, and costs for Kuehne+Nagel operated vehicles, especially over-the-road cargo vans and trucks.  Many vehicle types can be set up for tracking, and more can be added when required.

Social (personnel attrition, unwanted)
The global Human Resources dashboards calculate attrition the following way:

Every month we create a “snapshot” of the total number of employees (headcounts) and employees who left the company in that specific month. We save this data per workforce type (white and blue-collar), per exit reason type (wanted and unwanted).

When it comes to the monthly attrition calculation, we use the following formula: # of exits / # of headcounts in the given month.

The yearly attrition is calculated as a sum of the monthly attrition rates.