Corporate governance and compliance

Responsible management

Responsible corporate behaviour is vital to the future of energy supply security. Diligent handling of valuable energy resources, protecting the environment and the climate, and good relations with our neighbours are more important to RAG’s commercial success than ever.

Corporate principles

Our corporate principles, and corporate governance, compliance and integrity regulations are at the heart of everything we do. Together, they are the foundations of RAG’s success.

Our responsibilities to our employees, customers, shareholders and suppliers, as well as to society, the environment, residents and communities, are enshrined in our philosophy. These six areas of responsibility are inextricably linked, and are an integral part of our decision-making processes. Management constantly strives to apply these principles when weighing up priorities, and to make sound business decisions on the basis of these assessments. The criteria applied to investment and spending decisions are not purely commercial; they also take account of social, environmental and safety aspects.

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Our responsibilities to stakeholders

Owing to the importance of its activities for the economy and individuals, RAG believes that open, proactive communication is essential. Providing all stakeholders with transparent, comprehensive information is one of our company’s responsibilities.

RAG regards all of the groups directly affected by its decisions and activities as stakeholders. We treat them with respect and endeavour to take account of their interests as far as possible.

In recent years we have made increased efforts to engage with our various stakeholders. A strategy for communicating with local residents and public authorities has been developed to ensure that they receive still fuller information at the various stages of projects, to widen our interaction with them, and to reach all concerned in official planning procedures in good time and in a transparent manner.

Our motive for engaging in honest and sincere stakeholder dialogue is our desire to maintain the trust in our company, as this holds the key to our ability to implement our projects at affordable cost, to spot and resolve potential conflicts early on, and to maintain a continuous improvement process.

In 2013 we defined our stakeholders for the first time following an analysis by our CSR working group and management. This analysis has been regularly reviewed, and was last updated in June 2018. RAG was heavily involved in the consultations between ministries, regulators and stakeholders during the formulation of the Austrian climate and energy strategy.

The future interests me far more than the past, as I intend living in it.

Albert Einstein

Outlook for 2019

At a staff event in January 2019 RAG set up four counters, each of which focused on issues of long-term importance to the company. One was devoted to “Sustainability as a corporate objective”. Employees were asked to note their take on the subject and attach their comments to a pinboard. This generated a mass of suggestions for internal improvements. The CSR working group will assess the issues raised and initiate appropriate action, to be covered by the next report.