Dear Stakeholders
While 2022 was definitely a challenging year, at Beckers we look forward with confidence that is based on the passion of our people, our strong business strategy and value-adding products combined with our commitment to sustainable innovation.
The Russian war against Ukraine and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic impacted companies, the economy, and society in an already challenging macro environment in 2022. Our business, like others, was affected severely by raw material shortages, price volatility, disrupted supply chains, and record high energy prices. The rapid rise and further risk of inflation exacerbated the uncertainty of increasing costs. All of this affected our results, but we found answers, weathered these challenges and continue our path to becoming a sustainable business. We have high expectation for our core strategic segment coil coatings. We believe that coil coatings offer plenty of headroom for growth, and this is where we want to build market leadership with innovation and new solutions in sustainability. In our industrial coatings segment we will focus specifically on the strategic development of the agricultural, construction and earth-moving equipment business.
2022 was an important year for our sustainability work. We have been taking big steps and made progress towards our 2030 Sustainability Goals thanks to the passion of the Beckers people. This sustainability report is a testament to that and includes a lot of significant concrete actions, which are articulated around our three pillars: people, products and operations with impact.
We brought the world’s first ultraviolet and electron-beam paint to the market, reduced our energy use by 12 percent and reached our 2030 Goal of 70 percent renewable electricity. Our Beckers Sustainability Index, a transparent product classification tool that maps and measures full systems’ sustainability, has been assessed and its functionality confirmed by an independent auditor. It classifies the sustainable impact of coating systems along both material and functional dimensions and shows us the sustainable value of our product portfolio. We continued our efforts for diversity, equity and inclusion and pushed for that through our allyship initiative, our care for safety and our mental health programs. These are only a few of the numerous examples of Beckers’ commitment to set an example!
“Sustainability is our business. We believe in creating a positive impact through intentional actions and have thus redefined the meaning of value creation, focusing on generating profits via a positive impact on the environment and society.”
We continue to contribute to decarbonization by transforming our product portfolio, and collaborate with our customers and suppliers to drive our products, people and processes for positive change. To accelerate the scope and scale of our innovation, we are building a new Sustainable Innovation Centre in the UK to help unlock the potential of more sustainable coil coating technologies. Innovation and new solutions in sustainability are key for Beckers to lead the transformation in coil coatings. We continuously challenge ourselves to rethink what we do, not just when it comes to R&D and our formulations, but in how we work with suppliers, how we design our own processes and how we can optimize our customers' processes. I am incredibly grateful for our employees and partners who are with us on this journey!
In 2023 we started to evaluate Beckers’ performance with a new value creation model which has been developed by Lindéngruppen, our parent company. We will include economic, environmental and social considerations together in our value creation and measure our performance with it. By doing this, we promote accountability and transparency in what we do on sustainability, and we send a strong message to our employees and customers: Beckers wants to make coatings a force for good at every touchpoint!
Christophe Sabas
CEO
Berlin, Germany, May 2023
