OUR 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, thanks to Denkstatt’s Gap Analysis, we have brought the local report even closer to ESRS standards for CSRD.

2022 THROUGH THE EYES OF STAKEHOLDERS

Our material 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 1,000 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 places the topics in order from most important as follows: climate change, packaging and waste management, economic impact, corporate governance, sustainable resources. In the global view the topic of climate change jumped to the top spot, overtaking the previously long-standing most important topic of packaging and waste management. The importance of the pillar of corporate governance, the letter G in the ESG ranking of sustainability topics, 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 2023 we will once again follow the path to carbon neutrality of our entire value chain, i.e., including resources, and our suppliers as well.

In an important third place is the topic of water management, so in 2023 we will expand the support of our water sustainability activities.

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

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.

We actively seek the opinions and insights of our stakeholders:

• we invite local stakeholders to the annual International Stakeholders Forum organised by CCHBC; 
• we conduct interviews with key internal decision-makers and external partners; 
• we continuously work with external stakeholders; 
• we survey our leaders and external stakeholders; 
• we take into consideration the list of material issues from The Coca-Cola Company and other bottlers and food and beverage companies; 
• we listen to feedback from our Risk Forum and our risk register.

Management of our materiality issues

The result of our materiality survey represents their order of importance. 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 material 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 material 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 MATERIAL ISSUES?

Our material 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 material 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:

• determination of substantive issues;
• assessment of impact on stakeholders or their significance;
• social and environmental impact assessment;
• review and confirmation of findings..
  

Steps to ensure that material management is successfully embedded in our strategy and business activities as such are carried out by three groups within the entire Coca-Cola HBC Group.

• The Sustainability Mission 2025 team assesses a list of essential issues and ensures that our approach to sustainability is fully aligned with our business priorities;
• The Committee for Social Responsibility based on the Board of Directors subsequently approves the priority list of questions and the resulting Materiality Matrix;
• Finally it is the responsibility of the Executive Leadership Team to integrate our sustainability priorities into our business strategy..
  

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 to see how the ability of our business to grow sustainably over the long term is affected.

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.