#11 How can you get rid of your sustainability department?

With Stefan Haver, previously Head of Sustainability at Evonik, now Head of Communications and Sustainability at the RAG foundation.

Sustainability is one of the biggest challenges facing the chemicals industry today.

To reduce environmental impact, chemicals companies must move away from a defensive approach, delve into pain points, and invest heavily on innovation. After all, the goods they produce serve as key material for products across multiple other industries.

To really accomplish this mission, sustainability must be deeply embedded into every section of the organization. In an ideal future, a single sustainability department would become pointless.

 This is the intricate mission that *Evonik Industries AG - a leading chemical manufacturing company** - is currently in. In this episode of the FutureReady Podcast, host Arne Kötting talks with Stefan Haver. At the time of this conversation, Stefan Haver was working at Evonik as Head of Sustainability. Since January 2023, he has been working as Head of Communications & Sustainability at the **RAG Foundation**

This episode is presented by Arne Kötting, and was produced by Dhriti Kamath, Charlotte Irigoyen, Ashwerya Narula and Ana Luiza Loio. FutureReady music theme "Botanics" by Elizabells, and sound editing by Carsten Steffens.

02:45 Stefan talks about his background and his work at Evonik.

04:00 About Evonik as a company and its sustainability work.

04:30 How the topic of sustainability is approached in the organization and what departments deals with strategy, KPIs, etc.

13:15 On how important it is to find and use the right language to communicate sustainability, as well as to assess a company's footprint and handprint.

15:00 Arne and Stefan talk about evaluating a company's product portfolio.

22:45 Stefan talks about how the company deals with unsustainable but highly profitable products.

26:55 About the main driver for Evonik's sustainability efforts.

29:15 Arne and Stefan discuss the requirements of green financial reporting systems.

35:40 About the sustainability challenges of the coming years for companies like Evonik.

38:45 Stefan provides key insights into building and maintaining successful partnerships and explains how Evonik approaches partnerships, including those with NGOs.