Dear Customers, Shareholders, Employees and Friends of SOLARWORLD AG,
As an international group of companies we attach particular importance to sustainable management. It is indeed a fundamental principle of the SOLARWORLD Group and we have therefore decided – as in the previous year – to publish an integrated annual and sustainability report which underlines the fact that we have included the concept of sustainability in our strategic decision making. Group Management Report
Yet, why is it so important to deal in such great detail with sustainable management and what makes it so special? Sustainable development is designed to lead to a situation where present generations can satisfy their own needs without jeopardizing the potential needs of future generations. But also among the generations living today, e.g. between the poor and the rich countries, equal opportunities and the fair distribution of resources are core topics of the sustainability debate.
Sustainability can be structured in three dimensions – economically, ecologically and socially – with all three aspects always having to be viewed in conjunction, i.e. in an integrated way, because they are very closely interconnected.
It is only such a comprehensive approach that will make it possible to better anticipate opportunities and risks. We are therefore convinced that a broadly based sustainability management will produce crucial innovative and competitive advantages in the future and will not only do so in industrialized countries but also in developing and threshold countries. For us these regions are even of particular importance when it comes to opening up new markets.
This is why we further enhanced our group-wide sustainability management program in 2008. Solar energy is our answer to climate change and increasing scarcity of resources. It is our core competency. But also beyond that we want our actions to be consistently guided by the principles of sustainability. In our sustainability report you can retrace this development.
We have come out in favor of the GRI reporting framework because it is the result of a dialogue process between stakeholders and sets a generally applicable international standard. This year we are using the
GRI reporting framework for the second time already and like in the previous year we reached the A+ reporting level. In addition, we included the sustainability indicators of the German Association for Financial Analysis and Asset Management (DVFA = Deutsche Vereinigung für Finanzanalyse und Asset Management) in our reporting in 2008 for the first time. These DVFA criteria are subject to continuous further development. We actively participate in these discussions and will take any progress made into consideration.
Our vision and strategy are extensively spelled out in the Group Annual Report Strategy and Action Corporate Management and Control With our sustainability strategy we are placing the topics of quality and environmental management Quality and Environmental Management as well as our corporate social responsibility engagement www.solarworld.de/sustainability fairly and squarely into the focus of our activities. The foundation for this is our economic success: It gives us a firm footing and the necessary leeway for action.
Together with my colleagues on the Executive Board I invite you to gain your own impression of the achievements and challenges of the SOLARWORLD Group which we have summarized for you in this annual report. We would welcome your comments and suggestions and wish to encourage you to enter into a dialogue with us via sustainability(at)solarworld.de We look forward to your feedback!
Please, also visit our website where you will find detailed information about our corporate social responsibility commitment. www.solarworld.de/sustainability
With sunny regards,
