Stakeholders and materialities

The Integrated Annual Report of The Coca-Cola HBC Group, published annually, is in accordance with the principles of the International Council for Integrated Reporting and is prepared in accordance with the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative. This year’s local report followed the renewed structure of last year’s report, based on Denkstatt’s Gap analysis.

2023 THROUGH THE EYES OF STAKEHOLDERS

Our materiality issues include topics that have a significant economic, environmental and social impact or materially influence the evaluation and decision-making of our stakeholders. 75 of the most important stakeholders participated in the survey, and we therefore have a comparison between the point of view of local stakeholders and the average point of view of all stakeholders from Coca-Cola HBC countries. The results of a Group survey completed by more than 500 stakeholders from 29 CCHBC countries can be viewed here.

In the local and global overview of the importance of topics, almost the same priorities remain in the top five, which confirms the relevance of the Group’s global direction for the Czech and Slovak markets. Individual variations between Group and local results highlight themes that need to be more focused on regionally.

The global top 5 topic ranking lists the topics in order from most important as follows: packaging and waste management, climate change, product quality, water management, sustainable resources. In the global view, packaging and waste management returned to the top spot, swapping places with climate change. The importance of constantly focusing on the foundation of our business, a quality product, confirms the return of this topic to the top 5 after a one-year hiatus.

Local ranking of the top 5 most important topics

• Packaging and waste management
• Sustainable resources
• Water management
• Climate change
• Economic impact

In the local sense packaging and waste management remain the most important topic. Sustainable resources come second. Here we perceive an emphasis on careful certification of suppliers and monitoring of their impact. In 2024 we will once again walk the path to Net Zero of our entire value chain, that including resources and thus our suppliers.

Water management is an important third topic, and we have therefore expanded our portfolio of water protection activities in 2023, for example, by establishing a local partnership with World Wildlife Fund SK.

The importance of the commitment to Net Zero underlines the fourth place of the topic of climate change in the local concept, and the fifth place is the topic of economic impact.

LOCAL MATERIALITY MATRIX FOR THE CZECH REPUBLIC AND SLOVAKIA COMPILED IN 2022

WHAT ARE WE LEARNING FROM OUR STAKEHOLDERS?

Understanding the needs and interests of our stakeholders including our partners, customers, suppliers and community members, as well as employees, helps us create the right Materiality Matrix over time. It is also an important helper in developing a sustainable business strategy.

Managing our materiality issues

The result of our materiality survey represents the order of importance of the questions. By assessing the importance of these issues to our stakeholders and their decisions, combined with an assessment of the issue’s impact on society and the environment, we derive the relative importance of each issue and prioritise them accordingly. Following the process of prioritisation of our materiality issues, the Executive Leadership Team ensures their proper implementation in the overall strategy of the CCHBC Group. This includes setting and publishing goals and metrics to measure progress.

We have linked our materiality issues with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN to achieve long-term growth and development by 2030. In 2018, as we launched the 2025 Sustainability Mission with our sustainability commitments, we not only aligned our themes of significance with valid targets but with all relevant core targets for each SDG.

HOW DO WE ASSESS MATERIALITY ISSUES?

Our materiality issues are those of greatest importance to our stakeholders and wider shareholder groups and, therefore, impact our Company’s value drivers, our competitive position and long-term value creation.

Annual assessment

Our materiality issues are reviewed annually to fully understand how to manage the risks and opportunities they present. Thanks to this, we can prioritise topics that have the greatest impact on the economy, society and the environment.

Our annual materiality assessment is conducted in four stages by a multidisciplinary team dedicated to our 2025 Sustainability Mission.

Phase:

• Understanding the context for identifying a ‘long list’ of potentially relevant substantive (materiality) issues
• Assessment of their impact on society and the environment
• An assessment of their impact or importance to stakeholders and our business, including the financial impact
• Reviewing and verifying findings and reporting on priority areas

For our annual materiality assessment we have an ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders, which include employees, consumers, customers, suppliers, communities, governments, NGOs, investors, trade associations and even academia. In addition, we monitor external trends and other industries and how this affects the ability of our business to grow sustainably over the long term.

Our systematic approach to materiality helps us prioritise topics in line with GRI standards. The topics are often intertwined and should not be seen separately.