What are the key environmental risks faced by Ciba?
Ciba views environmental challenges as a business opportunity. Meeting more stringent environmental regulations – both internally and in cooperation with our customers – has provided many opportunities in the past to find improved methods of product formulations and processes. We expect this trend to continue in the future. Our Corporate EHS Policy and our operating guidelines are designed to enhance the safety of our products and overall operations, while addressing potential risks through our collective body of knowledge about mitigation and avoidance of such risks through adherence to “best practice” standards.

How does your environmental strategy add to shareholder value?
We are committed to integrating EHS management into our business practices. Clearly, a strong environmental performance leads to reduced costs, better customer relations and, ultimately, higher profit potential. We maintain our focus on finding more environmentally compatible means for producing our products and for manufacturing products with environmentally improved performance, to allow our customers to achieve a competitive edge. In our EHS Report for 2001, we introduced a novel method of measuring eco-efficiency, which shows how our environmental strategy has brought added value to all stakeholders.
In 2003 we adopted the UNCTAD (United Nations Committee for Trade & Development) system for reporting Eco-Efficiency Indicators. We were the first chemical company to adopt these UNCTAD Guidelines. This system describes a detailed method for calculating environmental performance data and relating this to financial performance figures. The indicators it produces are both comparable and transparent and we believe a step forward in the standardisation of environmental reporting.

Are any resources (human or financial) devoted to environmental business development (for example, a portion of R&D, or an environmental technologies reporting group)?
We have an Environmental Technologies Development Group in our Expert Services, which performs developmental work for internal environmental technology projects and performs some external business as well.
In addition, our R&D functions (process development, product development, and research) are geared toward discovering new products, new product forms, improved applications for existing products, and more efficient processes for manufacturing products. These advancements bring, quite often, not only a financial advantage but an environmental improvement as well.

From an ecological perspective, which are your most important stakeholder groups?
We consider all stakeholder groups to be ecologically important. Our customers, employees, shareholders, and the communities in which we operate all have environmental interests.