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Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics

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Corporate social responsibility and Ethics

Corporate social responsibility

Sandvik Coromant tries to the best of its ability to be responsible and work in accordance with the way it act, e.g. with sustainability both on a global and local level. It work according to the Sandvik code of conduct. This includes social, employee, equal opportunities, health and safe, management system and sponsoring.

Social responsibility

Being a global company increases the importance of social responsibility, since there are great public concerns about the impact of these companies' activities on home and host countries. For Sandvik, the most important aspect is the responsibility it assume for its employees and their work environment.
Respect for human and labor rights is essential for Sandvik. It has the same corporate policies, expressed in its Code of Conduct, at all units and strive to develop equal standards. It is also Sandvik's policy to establish and maintain appropriate procedures to evaluate and select major suppliers and subcontractors on their ability to meet the requirements of its Code of Conduct.
Sandvik's social objectives are to provide working conditions that stimulate employees to perform effectively assume responsibility and continue to develop in their personal and professional pursuits. Equal opportunities shall always be provided.

Employees

Sandvik's most important asset is its employees. The company has about 50,000 employees worldwide. There is huge diversity within the Group, with employees at subsidiaries in more than 60 countries and a vast range of nationalities and languages. Although Sandvik is a Swedish company listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, 77% of its employees are located and working at local units outside Sweden.
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Sandvik has a long international history. In 1937, Sandvik had companies and offices in 13 different countries in Europe and on the American continent. During the 1960s, Sandvik also established units in Asia, Africa and Australia. By 1967, Sandvik was established in 35 different countries.
Sandvik's workforce provides a variety of different skills, including expertise in Production, Marketing and Sales, Engineering, R&D, Human Resources, IT, Finance and other areas. This broad range of professional skills is one of its success factors.

Equal opportunities

Sandvik states in its Equal Opportunities Policy that all qualified individuals shall be given the same employment opportunities, without distinction or discrimination based on age, race, color, national origin, religion, gender, disability or other characteristics covered by protection in law.

Diversity and equal opportunity are two important challenges for Sandvik. Today, only 17% of its employees are women. Among managers, 14% are women, among office staff 28% are women and in production 10% are women.

One step toward changing this situation is a new policy stating that there must be at least one female applicant for each new recruitment of a manager.

Health and safety

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Environment, health and safety policy: • Environment, health and safety issues are integral parts of Sandvik's total operations and the company achieves continual improvement in these areas through management by objectives. Sandvik believes that the greatest effect is achieved through preventive actions. • The company follows an approach that results in long-term sustainable development in its operations. Consequently, Sandvik strives for high efficiency in the use of energy and natural resources, promote systems for recycling and recovery of materials and work to prevent pollution and any work-related illness and injury. • Sandvik strives to provide a healthy and safe work environment that stimulates employees to perform effectively, to assume responsibility and to continue to develop towards their personal and professional goals. • Sandvik complies with or exceeds applicable environmental, health and safety, legal and other requirements. The company believes that common and effective environment, health and safety requirements and standards should be established at an international level.
Although the health and safety regulations vary from country to country, Sandvik strive to standardize the internal requirements and procedures to uphold at least a basic Sandvik standard at all units. Each manager has a clear responsibility for health and safety.

Management systems

In order to work with improvements in a more systematic way, production units within the company are implementing health and safety management systems. Today, 155 (93%) of Sandvick's production, distribution and service units are certified to OHSAS 18001. (2010-01-01)

Community involvement

In the knowledge that each community is different, Sandvik's policy is that every company within the Group shall strive to understand and interact constructively with its local communities and to assist in their development.

Since the foundation of the company, involvement in the community has been an important part of Sandvik's long-term business development.

Today, several community projects are in progress around the world. The following examples illustrate how these projects benefit the local community as well as the company.

Sponsoring

Sandvik's position regarding sponsoring is restrictive. Sponsoring issues are handled locally and involve mainly contributions to registered cultural and recreational associations active in geographical areas in which Sandvik has operations.

Sponsoring of the local associations is aimed to stimulate and support the availability of various recreational activities for the employees and their families.

Ethics

Sandvik combats corruption through clear policies, risk identification and mitigation, personnel training and other robust measures. The company is particularly at risk from bribes related to marketing, sales and purchasing in countries in which corruption is prevalent. The use of agents and distributors, which are more difficult to monitor than Sandvik's own operations, also represents significant risks. Sandvik continually monitors corruption trends in the various countries the company is active.
In 2011, Group Executive Management implemented processes to minimize the risk of bribery throughout the Group, with a particular focus on high-risk countries and processes. These processes will also enable Sandvik to meet the requirements of the UK Bribery Act, which is a newly adopted law in the UK that will affect Sandvik's operations. An initial study was conducted to identify areas that require attention in order to comply with the new legislation. A new organization is being established to implement the new processes and to ensure that Sandvik takes all reasonable action to avoid bribery.

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