2010 Annual Report - S&B

Our strategic approach to Sustainable Developmentand consequently to Corporate Social Responsibilityis anchored on our sustained Values.Corporate Social ResponsibilityOur key sustainability challenges• Securing access to and responsible management of natural resourcesin order to be able to meet present and future demand forour products and, at the same time, improve efficiency in the useof natural resources• Safeguarding occupational health & safety• Valuing S&B’s people and fostering their development• Minimizing the environmental footprint of our activities: prevent,protect, mitigate, restore• Caring for local communities: promoting their balanced and sustainabledevelopment; achieving balance between the company’sactivity and other economic activities, such as tourismDrive our strategic approach to sustainable development• Setting our principles and our codes on the basis of our Valuesand our Purpose• Establishing policies in the areas of CSR that we and our stakeholdersidentify as most important, and upon which we focus• Developing comprehensive practices in these areas• Monitoring and measuring our performance• Communicating and reporting on all of these as a way of beingaccountable to our stakeholdersWe link our key challenges to specificcommitments which we pursuethrough a strategic approach supportedby appropriate governancestructures.38 S&B Industrial Minerals S.A.We have been publishing a SocialReport for the past ten years, applyingthe Global Reporting Initiative’s(GRI) Sustainability Guidelinesand checked for our ApplicationLevel by the GRI for the last four.The Social Report provides an overviewof our sustainability activitiesand performance. In our continuousquest to strengthen the accountabilityand methodological rigor ofour non-financial reporting, we initiatedan Assurance readinesscheck of our Social Report by athird party auditor at the end of2010, in order to identify gaps andareas for improvement and work towardsestablishing an assuranceprocess over the next two years.Values, Principles & CodesS&B Group• S&B Values• United Nations Global Compact• S&B Corporate Governance Principles, 4th revision, 2010• S&B Group Management PoliciesS&B’s European activities• Industrial Minerals Association-Europe (IMA-Europe)Sustainable Development Charter• IMA-Europe Biodiversity Statement• Voluntary Agreement on Crystalline SilicaS&B Industrial Minerals S.A. (parent company)• Greek Mining Enterprises Association (GMEA) Codeof Principles for Sustainable Development• SEV Hellenic Federation of Enterprises Charter of Rightsand Obligations of Enterprises• SEV Business Council for Sustainable DevelopmentCode for Sustainable Development• S&B Internal Operating Regulation• Externally developed principles and codes, to which S&B complies voluntarily