Building communities and responsible partnerships

Our social responsibility

Höganäs aims to be a good citizen wherever we operate, always upholding high standards in human rights, labour rights, anti-corruption and environmental protection. This commitment also extends to our partners.

We are a global business, but our operations have a significant impact on many local communities. The way we see it, we thrive when the community thrives. Dialogue, transparency and partnerships are essential when interacting with the societies we do business in. We actively seek out and listen to input from the communities in which we operate, but this is still an area where we need to improve.

At all of our global production sites, we are engaged with local communities and we support local organizations.

Our policies

Business ethics and anti-corruption

Höganäs has throughout its history been committed to high ethical standards in all business relations – a strong tradition that we need to protect carefully. We take a stance against all forms of corruption and unethical business behaviour.

We make sure that our own operations live up to our Code of Conduct through training and internal control mechanisms, such as self-assessments, audits and whistleblowing procedures.

To keep pace with changes in the world and in our markets, the Code of Conduct and Anti-bribery policy is regularly reviewed, updated and reissued to ensure its relevancy and comprehensiveness.

We invite you to an open dialogue

In all locations where we operate, we have a responsibility to maintain an active and transparent dialogue where we inform the community about our activities and listen to their opinions. We also welcome spontaneous feedback from our neighbours and all sites have channels for communication and grievance mechanisms.

In Höganäs and Halmstad, both located in Sweden, where we have our largest production sites, we communicate through our newsletter Insikt (in Swedish), which is published and distributed on paper 2-3 times per year. At our plant in Brazil, which is located very close to a residential area with restaurants and stores, we have launched Conexão, a newsletter in Portuguese. In between printed issues, we continuously update our local website. In the newsletter we encourage our neighbours to share their opinions or questions with us. Good results from open dialogue with neighbours and the local municipality have been achieved in several projects involving local infrastructure.

Drawing on inspiration from the good examples we already have within the Group, we aim to develop a consistent ‘Höganäs way’ for stakeholder dialogue at all sites.

Support to local organizations

At all our locations around the globe, we have a long history of supporting the local communities in which we operate. Our most substantial donations are given to support children’s development in underprivileged areas, local fire departments and youth sport.