Sustainability promise

For RHI Magnesita, sustainability means economic prosperity, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

Purpose

RHI Magnesita’s purpose is to master heat, enabling global industries to fuel  modern life. The company’s advanced products are essential for its customers in the steel, cement, metals, glass, energy and chemicals industries. Through the reliable supply of innovative refractory products and services, RHI Magnesita enables its customers to sustainably deliver the basic materials that are essential for modern life.

We aim to be our customers’ partner of choice on their own decarbonisation journeys!

Strategy

RHI Magnesita strives to be the sustainability leader in its sector. The company’s sustainability strategy is based on the 10 Principles of the UN Global Compact covering human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption.

Focus areas include:

Excellent Health & Safety performance
Climate Change mitigation minimizing environmental impacts
Upholding diversity in the workplace
Sustainable Procurement Practices
Strong relationships with all stakeholders

Governance

RHI Magnesita has a dedicated Corporate Sustainability Committee that monitors performance related to climate change, environment, health and safety, stakeholder relations, and other ESG risks. Executive and functional leaders are accountable for delivering sustainability priorities, and the Global Sustainability Team is responsible for external reporting, assessing sustainability-related risks, and liaising with the Board and key external stakeholders. They also provide regular updates to the Corporate Sustainability Committee. In 2022, a dedicated team was formed to develop a global sustainable procurement strategy and provide guidance to the Group’s regional operations.

Materiality

RHI Magnesita conducts a materiality assessment as part of our sustainability reporting process. This helps us to identify issues that are important to the company’s long-term value creation and the demands of our stakeholders.

In 2022, RHI Magnesita launched an online survey to collect the perspectives of a range of stakeholders in different regions, including its workforce. Health and Safety, Recycling, Climate Change and Decarbonisation, Other Emissions, Energy Efficiency, and Diversity were re-confirmed as material topics; you can see our actions regarding these topics within our 2025 Targets below.

2022 Materiality Matrix RHI Magnesita

This analysis included the double materiality concept, which used three different impact levels (low, medium, high) to assess topics related to the value of the company. These are based on the Group’s risk management approach and comprise four dimensions (compliance, strategy, financial, and operation), as well as the likelihood of the risk becoming true.

Targets and Performance

RHI Magnesita’s 2025 sustainability targets were defined in 2019 based on engagement with internal and external stakeholders. The following areas of materiality were identified: CO2 emissions, Energy use, Recycling, Diversity, Health & Safety, NOx and SOx emissions. These topics were reconfirmed during a materiality analysis at the end of 2022. The results of this analysis will be the base for the existing targets, and for setting up new targets.

Standards, frameworks and reporting

RHI Magnesita is committed to leading sustainability standards and frameworks. In the period from January 1st, 2022, through December 31st, 2022, the company reported in accordance with GRI Standards. As a supporter of the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), RHI Magnesita has identified and quantified the relevant climate-related risks and opportunities.

Contribution to SDGs

RHI Magnesita actively supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The company submitted annual climate reports to CDP in 2022 and scored an A- rating. In accordance with the EU taxonomy, RHI Magnesita reports the proportion of its revenues, operating expenditures and capital expenditures for FY 2022 that are taxonomy-non eligible, eligible, and aligned.

The company’s integrated management system is compliant with ISO 14001 (environmental), ISO 50001 (energy), ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety) and ISO 9001 (quality). RHI Magnesita also reports on its gender diversity progress to the FTSE Women Leader Review each year. In addition, as a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact since 2018, the company reports annually about its progress, engagement and contributions to the most operationally relevant UN SDGs. This non-financial report covers all activities, sites, and industrial assets operated or contractually managed by RHI Magnesita N.V. or one of its subsidiaries. RHI Magnesita commissioned Deloitte Audit Wirtschaftsprüfungs GmbH for an independent third-party limited assurance engagement on the non-financial report for the year ended 31 December 2022, according to Dutch transposition of the NFI-Decree, the Taxonomy Regulation ((EU) 2020/852) and GRI Standards.

Please click here for more details on the assurance
process and conclusions.

More Details

Ratings & Memberships

1. UN Global Compact; voluntary
2. Responsible Steel; voluntary
3. Business for Societal Impact; voluntary
4. TeachForAustria; voluntary
5. Wissensfabrik; voluntary
6. respACT – Austrian Business Council for Sustainable Development; voluntary

  • World Refractories Association (WRA)
  • European Refractories Producers Federation (PRE), via the Association of the Austrian Mining and Steel Producing
  • Industry of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber
  • Association of the Austrian Mining and Steel Producing
  • Austrian Society for Metallurgy
  • Association of the German Refractory Industry Steel Institute VDEh
  • Brazilian Association of Metallurgy, Materials & Mining (ABM)
  • Brazilian Association of Refractories Producers (ABRAFAR)
  • SIRef/MG (Minas Gerais State Refractory Industry Union)
  • Latin-American Association of Refractories Producers (ALAFAR)
  • SIR (Brazilian Refractory Industry Union)
  • Industriellenvereinigung (Federation of Austrian Industries)
  • Cerame-Unie
  • Euromines
  • European Technical Platform of Sustainable Mineral Resources (ETPSMR)
  • European Cement Research Academy (ECRA)
  • American Ceramic Society
  • Bergmännischer Verband Österreichs
  • US National Lime Association