The business activities of Porsche touch on the lives and interests of many people around the world. The company consults and communicates with various stakeholder groups regularly. The consultation and engagement are continuous and regular because an open, transparent exchange of information and arguments paves the way for mutual understanding and acceptance. A beneficial, goal-driven dialog is the only way for Porsche to build and maintain lasting relationships of trust with its direct dialog partners.
Porsche has a complete stakeholder management system designed to identify the expectations of its groups of stakeholders systematically and derive key social trends from these. Porsche considers the interests and points of view of various stakeholders continuously and factors them into its strategic plans and business decisions, and sustainability is no exception. In turn, the stakeholders can learn more about the current and future activities of Porsche as well as the requirements and general conditions.
Porsche Stakeholder
Identifying and involving stakeholders in a dialog is important to Porsche when it comes to fulfilling all the different aspects of social responsibility. A stakeholder is any individual or group with an interest in a decision or activity of Porsche because they have a direct or indirect influence over its actions or are themselves affected by them.
Porsche performs regular internal analyses to identify its most important stakeholder groups. As such, the company considers the following as key players: residents and communities, customers and business partners, investors and analysts, media, employees, policymakers and associations, nongovernmental and charitable organizations, scientific community and experts, and competitors.
Selected stakeholder management tools
Porsche believes it is important for people to talk to one another, not about one another. By changing perspective, Porsche aims to understand other positions, overcome challenges through cooperation, and build long-term partnerships. It does this by using different media and dialog formats as well as various internal and external communication channels.
Porsche establishes and maintains direct contact to maintain a continuous dialog with its stakeholders. Porsche further intensified its active dialog with its stakeholder groups in the year under review. Information about the companycan be found, for example, in the Porsche magazine “Christophorus” and the online newsroom, on its LinkedIn, X and Instagram channels, on the web-based TV channel “9:11 Magazine”, in the “9:11. Porsche. Podcast” audio format, and on the company website.
Porsche released “Perspectives on Sustainability”, a series of interviews focusing on sustainability, in its online newsroom in 2023. In these interviews, employees discuss their personal contributions to more sustainability within the company, offering technical and personal insights in the process.
For internal communication, Porsche uses the digital Carrera media, some of which is also printed. Employees can find information on current developments at Porsche, including sustainability, on the Carrera Online intranet pages and in the Carrera Magazine. Porsche completely overhauled and redesigned its “Sustainability” intranet page in 2023.
Regular works and departmental meetings, information events for employees, specialized focus weeks, and digital events are also used for internal communication purposes. For example, employees from Procurement at Porsche took a closer look at supply chain sustainability in a focus week in 2023. Formats like these help employees voice their concerns and speak with the experts directly.
Acceptance communication and complaints management
Porsche AG Group welcomes questions, suggestions, and concerns from internal and external stakeholder groups alike. The company also advises its subsidiaries on how to communicate with their direct stakeholders. The Politics and Society department and the Construction, Environment, and Energy Management office have set up their own complaints management system as a centralized point of contact for complaints and suggestions.
The complaints process at Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen has been audited as part of its recertification under ISO 14001. It is set to be expanded to Weissach and Leipzig starting in 2024. This process optimization will enable Porsche and selected subsidiaries to document and evaluate all known concerns systematically, and to take and document immediate action if necessary. The corresponding contact details are visible and accessible to the public.
People in the vicinity can lodge complaints using the email address nachgefragt@porsche.de or by calling a dedicated phone number. In 2023, Porsche was able to investigate a two-digit number of such complaints, process them, and find permanent resolutions. Residents near the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen site complained about the noise caused by construction work in individual cases. In all cases, however, the subsequent measurements were within the legal limits for noise emissions.
Stakeholders can contact the department responsible for sustainability directly using the email address sustainability@porsche.de.
Porsche aims to continue cultivating its regular, direct dialog with residents and is thus planning further dialog formats in addition to its complaints management system. For example, 2023 saw the start of conceptual planning for the resumption of information events for residents at selected company locations, which were held regularly until 2020.
In the interests of a dialog with international stakeholder groups across all sites, Porsche developed a universally applicable set of acceptance communication guidelines in 2023 and utilized them in selected markets for the first time. These guidelines aim to facilitate harmonized, regionally appropriate communication with local stakeholders. The company intends to continue updating these guidelines in cooperation with experts from the sales regions.
Stakeholder survey
Since 2013, Porsche has asked its stakeholders about their views and expectations on sustainability issues in a structured biennial format. This survey provides Porsche with suggestions and inspiration and is factored into the materiality assessment process. A stakeholder survey was carried out in 2023.
Porsche worked with internal and external experts to select the topics for this anonymous, international online survey in such a way that they reflected the known requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). For the sake of continuity, Porsche also included topics from commonly used reporting standards and the Sustainability Strategy 2030—for a total of 27 subject areas. The survey consisted of an open survey in the online newsroom and a strategic survey in the regions of Europe, North America, and Asia. It was available in German, English, and Mandarin.
Some 200 people took part in the open online survey. Over 3,000 participants answered the questions in the panel survey for each region. Overall, around 37% of feedback came from European markets, around 32% from North America, and around 31% from Asia. Alongside direct stakeholders, the participants included representatives from the media, nongovernmental organizations, academia, government, politics, and other stakeholder groups.
Even the members of the Porsche Sustainability Council took part in the survey. They also evaluated the methodology of the survey and the detailed results in a separate workshop and considered their overall assessment of the stakeholder survey.
