It is always best when beginning a journey to understand what you have packed. So for us, the beginning meant opening our company up to a corporate social responsibility (CSR) gap assesment. This assessment, completed in April of 2008, included interviews with employees from all parts of the organization to get their insight on current activities, focusing on social, environmental, governance, and financial aspects. With the knowledge gleaned from these interviews and the review of publicly available information on ThyssenKrupp Elevator, we were able to benchmark and recognize areas for improvement, as well as opportunities for growth.

Over the past year, we have laid a solid foundation on which future sustainable strategy will be built and executed. We began our journey in January 2008 with the development of our sustainability vision and the formation of a sustainability committee directed by our CEO, Barry Pletch. We then conducted a comprehensive corporate social responsibility (CSR) gap assessment of ThyssenKrupp Elevator’s social, environmental, and governance programs and initiatives, which is being utilized to identify key opportunities and develop long-term sustainability implementation plans. We also initiated life cycle assessments of our elevator products, and engaged a formal company-wide footprint assessment and internal report. In June 2008, our Corporate Sustainability Manager, Sasha Bailey, became our first LEED^® Accredited Professional and is actively engaged in educating the entire workforce about how the principles of green building and sustainability influence our business, as well as our customers.

Looking forward, we plan to formalize sustainable business policies and procedures, set targets on key sustainability indicators, integrate sustainability principles into product design and technology innovation processes, and initiate company-wide sustainability awareness training.

We view our environmental and social performance data as indicators of our decision-making processes, striving toward a new and better way of doing business. At ThyssenKrupp Elevator, we are moving beyond expectations.