Performance

Materiality Overview

While our value-creation model guides us to deliver more value to customers, the materiality map determines what is most relevant for our stakeholders and outlines our positive impact on sustainable development.

Our Value-Creation Model

Credibility Culture

Credibility culture is at the heart of our value-creation model. Our culture is built on trust, integrity, competence, and responsibility. We support personal commitment, teamwork, cultural diversity, and the courage needed to take risks to inspire customers.

Customer Value (CESIM^®)

We differentiate ourselves from our competitors through the high level of customer benefits our products and services provide. Added value for our customers is the measure for success.

Our customer-centric method for innovating building technology with damper actuators, control valves, sensors and meters, CESIM^®, gives rise to unique products and services. It ensures that the aspects of Comfort, Energy Efficiency, Safety, Installation and Maintenance always remain the focus during product development.

Belimo is committed to customer-centric thinking and acting, and assures expert advice, high inventory availability, and reliable order processing. We work as a team with our customers, focusing on their success and understanding their wishes, needs and challenges.

Solution Leadership

We see market-relevant innovation as one of the most important factors for long-term success. The challenges of our customers and of new technology trends inspire us to develop groundbreaking solutions. We strive for market and technological leadership and invest in innovation, so that we can surprise the market with unique solutions.

We give full attention to heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning applications. We largely refrain from investing in material assets, while concentrating instead on developing our employees, products, markets, and quality standards. We diversify in depth, rather than breadth. Find more information on solution leadership here.

Operational Excellence

Through operational excellence we ensure the reliable delivery of top-quality products. Our priorities are always clear – quality first, timeliness second and cost third.

We continuously improve our operational processes and utilize economies of scale. We learn from our mistakes and see them as an opportunity to drive excellence. All employees are therefore encouraged to introduce improvements at any time to ensure top performance in operations.

We ourselves do only what others cannot do better. This allows us to spend more time focusing on what we do best, which means systematically investing in our own skills. This empowers us to deliver more value to our customers.

Our Materiality Map and Responsibilities

The materiality map shows the topics that are most relevant for our stakeholders and where we as a company can have a positive impact on sustainable development. By identifying and addressing these topics, Belimo strengthens stakeholder relationships, monitors high-level opportunities, safeguards against risks, and maintains successful mid-term and long-term growth performance. The identification of these topics is also the basis for strategic corporate management and sustainability reporting.

The materiality assessment was initiated as an industry and peer evaluation that was then developed in dialog with group management across the Company to single out relevant topics in accordance with three dimensions:

• Strategic relevance for the business.
• Impact on sustainable development.
• Relevance for key stakeholder groups.

An overview of the topics identified in the process is shown in the materiality map below:

This report focuses on the 16 dark-gray “Interact,” “Impact,” and “Focus” topics of the map, which in accordance with the GRI Universal Standards Update 2021, now displays the material topics along the two axes of strategic relevance for the business and impact on sustainable development.

Responsibility for Environmental, Social, and Governance Topics

The highest body responsible for the corporate strategy in the areas of environmental, social, and governance topics is the Board of Directors of BELIMO Holding AG. The Board of Director’s Audit Committee is meanwhile responsible for reporting and compliance with respect to environmental, social, and governance topics.

At the Executive Committee level, environmental, social, and governance topics are managed by the Sustainability Steering Committee, which comprises the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, and the Chief Technology Officer. They are supported by the Head of Group Division Logistics/Customization, the Global Head of Human Resources (both members of the Extended Executive Committee), the Head of Group Quality and Sustainability, and the Head of Sustainability.

A Sustainability Working Group consisting of representatives from all major departments of Belimo assists them in operationalizing the respective initiatives.

Our Answer to Megatrends

Five megatrends account for structural growth drivers in the Belimo core markets: energy efficiency, climate change, urbanization, safety in buildings, and digitization.

Energy Efficiency: Smart Controls

As buildings currently consume 40% of the world’s energy, with HVAC systems accounting in turn for 40% of that figure, smart control of HVAC systems has a significant impact on global energy efficiency. In most regions of the world, regulations increasingly support raising energy efficiency standards for HVAC equipment and encouraging energy-efficiency-driven building renovations. Here, Belimo products are making a difference.

Climate Change: Energy-Efficient HVAC Solutions

Climate change affects all of us. As our field devices help to reduce CO₂ emissions from buildings’ HVAC systems, Belimo has a particularly strong commitment to helping limit global warming to less than 1.5° Celsius. 

Until we transition to a carbon-free economy, however, we will have to adjust to living on a warmer planet with more extreme heat. Already today, an estimated two thirds of the global energy consumption of HVAC systems is used for cooling applications and only one third for heating applications. A hotter global climate, in combination with continuously tighter building envelopes, means the shift of global energy demand from heating toward cooling will continue. Although better-insulated buildings lower the primary energy input, they also increase the need for ventilation, which is where Belimo field devices contribute to energy-efficient solutions.

Urbanization: Well-Being and Indoor Air Quality

As populations shift across the globe from rural to urban areas, more and more people are leading modern, urban lifestyles and are spending 90% of their time indoors. State-of-the-art building automation and reliable HVAC components are indispensable for satisfying increasing demands for pleasant room climates and healthy environments.

Safety in Buildings: Protecting Lives and Assets

Urbanization means more buildings on less land or smaller footprints with unusual designs, mixed use and increasing complexity. This poses new challenges for protecting lives and assets, making technical fire protection through motorized fire and smoke control dampers more important than ever before. At the same time, high-performance HVAC systems and proper humidification strategies are required to maintain a stable, safe, and healthy indoor air quality.

Digitization: Embracing the Age of Transparency

Digitization in the building automation industry offers new powerful toolsets for analyzing and optimizing HVAC systems. The applications for smart performance devices are seemingly endless, whether they be in the form of data analytics, monitoring, predictive maintenance, ease of installation, or digital support during the commissioning and system integration phase.