ST reports further advances in corporate responsibility during 2008

SINGAPORE: STMicroelectronics has announced the publication of the company’s 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report.

The report, which covers all of ST’s activities and sites in 2008, contains detailed indicators of the Company’s performance across the full range of Social, Environmental, Health & Safety, and Corporate Governance issues and reaffirms ST’s long-established commitment to serving its stakeholders with integrity, transparency and excellence.

Year 2008 was a milestone year for STMicroelectronics. In 2008, several important initiatives that have reshaped the company into a leaner, faster, more innovative and powerful competitor in the world's semiconductor arena were implemented in a deteriorating world economy. At the same time, the Company was able to record continued progress in all areas of Corporate Responsibility, thanks to the continued success of its Sustainable Excellence program.

ST’s Sustainable Excellence program was designed to embed Corporate Responsibility into every level of the Company’s activities. The term reflects ST’s firm belief in its ability to balance stakeholders’ expectations to make the Company ‘sustainable’ – successful now and in the future – in the short and long term and enable it to contribute to sustainable development at a global level.

“Year after year, we continue to find that pursuing the highest standards of Corporate Responsibility brings both short-term and long-term benefits,” said Georges Auguste, Executive Vice President, Director of Quality, Education and Sustainable Development, STMicroelectronics. “In the short term, our people are inspired to produce more innovative products and to do so with ever-increasing quality, while in the longer term we are better able to further the professional development of our employees, attract the best new talent, and strengthen the relationships with the communities in which we operate.”

STMicroelectronics was one of the first global industrial companies to recognise the importance of environmental responsibility and has won many awards for its pioneering work in this field. The Company played a pivotal role in demonstrating that ‘Green is Black’ i.e. that environmental responsibility delivers real financial benefits.

Since the company published its first ‘Environmental Decalogue’ in 1994, it has continually widened the scope of its definition of corporate responsibility and increasingly formalised both the deployment of its principles within the company and the reporting of the results to stakeholders to ensure that it remains at the forefront of Corporate Responsibility.

In fact, the 2008 report confirms that ST maintained its continuous improvement in all of the Company’s traditional areas of Corporate Responsibility excellence such as environment, employee well-being, community involvement, and product responsibility while also demonstrating strong performance in aspects that are becoming increasingly important to stakeholders. These include Health & Safety, diffusion of Corporate Responsibility in the supply chain, implementation of human rights, and responsible restructuring.

Among the achievements highlighted in the report are:

* A reduction in energy consumption per unit by 5 percent compared to 2007. This consumption now represents around 49 percent of its 1994 level, meaning that the energy saved each year is equivalent to the consumption of a town of 400,000 people;

* Outstanding progress in the reduction of CO2 emissions, which are now represent only 68 percent of what they were in 2005 in absolute value, despite a 4 percent increase in production volume over the same period;

* Further improvements in an already excellent safety performance, with a 21 percent decrease of the number of incidents compared to 2007. The cumulative 61 percent improvement since 2002 places ST at the top level in the industry;

* Full deployment of the Company’s health plan that offers to each and every ST employee, everywhere in the world, the same complete medical cover. More than 17,000 employees had at least one medical examination in 2008, bringing the total to more than 41,000 in the last two years.

“At ST, we have a long-term vision, through our unwavering commitment to Sustainable Excellence. We deploy, at all levels of the organization, hundreds of programs for sustainable development, quality improvement, cost reduction, innovation, market share, health and safety, and many more but we know that, at the end of the day, the heart of our performance lies in our people, in their engagement and in the sharing of our company values: Integrity, People and Excellence,” said Carlo Bozotti, President and CEO.

“Today, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades, we believe that the financial and economic world needs stronger governance; we believe that a longer-term vision is an absolute must to support robust economic growth. Sustainable capitalism cannot be based on short-term strategies and unrealistic expectations.”

The full report can be downloaded here.