This Sustainability Report is a central part of our annual overall reporting and was produced in accordance with the GRI standards for the last time for 2024. The corresponding GRI content index is available online. As usual, the CSR index links the relevant topics for non-financial reporting (NFR) with the respective sections in the report.
Against the backdrop of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which we will have to abide by in the future, in 2024 we took the first steps to prepare for the associated European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which, in our case, will replace the GRI standards. A key focus was on updating our existing materiality analysis, taking into account the requirements for a double materiality analysis (DMA). During implementation, we considered both the potentially material sustainability issues according to the ESRS as well as the company-specific issues addressed so far. We will publish the results of the DMA for the first time in the 2025 sustainability report, although it is already evident that, substantively, there will be a high degree of overlap with the topics covered and reported here as part of sustainability management.
Subject matter and reporting scope
Our reporting includes the fully consolidated companies of the BLG LOGISTICS GROUP, exclusively assigned to the AUTOMOBILE and CONTRACT Divisions. Both these divisions and our corporate divisions have been taken into account in determining and selecting material topics and prioritizing content for the non-financial statement.
This report focuses on the BLG companies in Germany, which still make up the majority of our business, accounting for 90.6 percent of employees and 95.9 percent of the revenue of the consolidated locations. In order to comprehensively depict our sustainability performance, we are continually working to further expand data collection and availability for our companies abroad. For several years now, we have included the consumption of the relevant international locations in our energy and greenhouse gas inventory and were able to complete this process in the reporting year. With the last report, we also began presenting differentiated human resource KPIs at the individual country level. For the first time this year, the compliance training rates at our overseas companies were also recorded and presented.
The third division, CONTAINER is represented by the EUROGATE Group, in which BLG LOGISTICS holds a 50 percent stake. It is the leading shipping line-independent container terminal group in Europe and independently manages the areas that are material for the non-financial statement – including energy, environment, personnel and compliance. We therefore present the NFR topics relevant for the CONTAINER Division separately in the EUROGATE section.
Identifying and selecting the reported topics
In addition to a detailed materiality process from 2018, annual topic checks and a comprehensive internal review of the materiality in 2021, the basis for determining the topics covered in this report is an internal validation carried out again in 2023. The aspects were reassessed in terms of their importance for our business success and in terms of the impacts of our business on the environment and society. In this way, we ensure that the content remains relevant and that current developments and new findings are considered. Independently of this, in 2024 we continued to use the key performance indicators previously collected in line with the GRI requirements.
A comprehensive process was initiated in the reporting year to redesign the existing materiality analysis in accordance with CSRD requirements. A central part of the required DMA is the identification of potential and actual positive and negative impacts of our business on the environment and society (impact materiality). At the same time, opportunities and risks arising from external sustainability factors for us and the long-term success of the company are considered (financial materiality). These aspects were collected in workshops with the specialist departments and then quantitatively evaluated. The results are used to derive the data points to be reported in accordance with the ESRS, which will form the substantive framework for the 2025 report.
Weighting of the material topics
We assigned our material topics to ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC pillars and transferred them to the materiality matrix below according to their relevance for BLG LOGISTICS and their impacts on the environment and society. There they are ranked as important, very important, or highest priority. Only the latter are taken into account in our NFR. We have also assigned the topics to the SDGs, which we want to help achieve.
Materiality matrix 2024
In the following, we describe our management approach to each material topic and map selected key performance indicators in accordance with GRI guidelines. In addition, we explain how we deal with NFR aspects and present the associated concepts, results, evaluation methods and other relevant key performance indicators. An overarching risk assessment can be found in the section Risk Management.