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SUSTAINABLE VALUE CREATION

Committed to sustainable value creation for our stakeholders.

Albemarle knows that to create sustained value for our stakeholders we must commit to the highest ethical standards, while fostering innovation through partnerships across our value chain.

ETHICS & COMPLIANCE

We view ethics and compliance as the foundation for building trust with our customers, communities, suppliers and investors.

Albemarle is fully committed to working with integrity. Doing what is right, and doing what we say we will do, is our starting point for our endeavors. We care as much about how results are achieved as we do about the results themselves, and believe that we have a responsibility to operate our business in a transparent and ethical manner.

 

Our Approach

Our General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer is responsible for our comprehensive ethics and compliance program. Albemarle’s Vice President of Ethics and Compliance reports on emerging compliance risks and the status of our program to the Audit and Finance Committee of our Board of Directors on a quarterly basis. Our approach to business ethics is directed by our Code of Conduct, which provides an overview of our expectations and standards for ethical behavior and compliance, as applied in day-to-day employee activities.

 

Programs & Initiatives

  • We require our workforce to complete annual Code of Conduct training and provide additional in-depth compliance training to employees according to potential ethics and compliance risks they might face. 
    We conduct periodic assessments of specific ethics and compliance risks of importance to our stakeholders, such as anti-corruption, to understand the effectiveness of our existing controls and ensure alignment with our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework.
  • We conduct real-time analytics to provide us with insight into our ethics and compliance program and to help us direct resources where needed.
  • When employees or other stakeholders recognize or suspect activity that is potentially in violation of our Code of Conduct, other internal policy or an applicable law, we encourage them to speak up. Employees may do so anonymously and without fear of retaliation. Concerns can be raised with employees’ supervisors, the Global Ethics and Compliance Department, the General Counsel or members of the Legal Department, the Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee, the Human Resources Department, or via our Integrity Helpline.

For more information, please see our Compliance Page.

RESPONSIBLE SOURCING

We seek to ensure the resilience of our supply chain by anticipating, mitigating and managing disruption.

Our Approach

Our Chief Supply Chain Officer has cross-functional oversight and mobilization capabilities across the entire Albemarle organization to enable end-to-end supply chain optimization and traceability. The Chief Supply Chain Officer’s responsibilities also involve anticipating, mitigating and managing disruptions, including improving exception-based processes that require the mobilization of cross-functional teams to meet short-term deliverables and increase supply chain resilience. A more in-depth description of our commitment to a sustainable supply chain can be found in our Responsible Sourcing Policy.

 

Supply Chain Center of Excellence

The Supply Chain Center of Excellence helps us to strengthen supplier relationships and manage risks. Our policy framework, One Procurement, embeds functional, ethics and compliance requirements into our source-to-pay processes. One Procurement centralizes and standardizes essential functions and capabilities and drives unified procurement behavior.

We work to ensure that our suppliers are socially, legally, and ethically responsible – and treat the people who work for them fairly and with dignity. The sourcing of goods and services is governed by our Code of Conduct and our Responsible Sourcing Policy. 

 

Supply chain visibility is also an important part of our obligations under the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), which aims to promote environmentally and socially responsible practices in the mining industry. We conduct due diligence, as appropriate, on prospective business partners that present heightened risks related to human rights, health and safety, the environment, corruption, fraud or antitrust practices.

 

Code of Conduct for Business Partners

Our Business Partners are critical to our success. They help us deliver on the promises we make. It is important for these partners to act in a manner consistent with our core values, and for that we have a Code of Conduct for Business Partners to set these expectations and bring awareness.

Finally, as part of our core values, we seek to foster a culture where employees and other stakeholders feel safe to raise any matter related to Albemarle that is of concern to them. Speaking up helps Albemarle to prevent harm, manage risk and promptly address issues. Albemarle has an Integrity Helpline operated by an independent company that can be contacted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in multiple languages by various means - phone, online or text message (in the U.S.). More information can be found at www.IntegrityHelpline.Albemarle.com.

View our Code of Conduct for Business Partners.

 

Resourcing Raw Materials

The procurement of raw materials within Albemarle is managed by procurement teams familiar with conflict minerals regulations. All vendors in our SAP system are screened against multiple denied-party lists, including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Forced Labor list, and we require relevant suppliers to periodically complete the Responsible Mining Initiative (RMI) Conflict Minerals Reporting Template.

 

Product Safety

Albemarle’s Global Product Stewardship (GPS) team is responsible for ensuring that our products are safe when used for their intended purpose. The GPS team prepares safety data sheets (SDS) as legally required in most jurisdictions where we sell our products.  An SDS provides a summary of all our testing results, product information summaries and information on the safe handling and disposal of our products. 

Albemarle uses computer modeling to conduct testing on our products wherever possible to avoid animal testing where the law permits.

Learn more about our Animal Testing Policy.

PRODUCT AND PROCESS INNOVATION

Innovation is critical not only to financial success, but also to execute our commitments to sustainability.

Our global team of world-class R&D scientists and engineers collaborate with external experts such as academics, professional institutes and cutting-edge start-ups, providing Albemarle with access to world-class knowledge in specialized areas.  

  • We leverage our JVs and government funding to make strategic investments in R&D.
  • We prioritize investment in projects that accelerate our growth strategy and drive sustainability forward. 
  • We work towards ensuring that we have the right infrastructure, expertise and training to leverage innovation opportunities swiftly.
  • We deploy analytic methods and deep data science to clarify and prioritize the most significant opportunities for our mission.