Materiality

Proactive management is the foundation of our sustainability programme

We embody our principle of doing business right by prioritising the sustainability impacts that matter most to our stakeholders and to us as a company. We have analysed our most important sustainability priorities, which are now integrated into our sustainability and reporting strategies and serve as our compass for mapping future performance.

Our first analysis of key sustainability topics was finalised in 2014, and in 2017 we completed an update to ensure that our issue prioritisation is up to date.

Our analysis consisted of the following steps:

1. Using the results of our 2014 analysis, of customer and shareholder questionnaires, as well as of stakeholder key issues rankings, we created a list of 28 topics across the environmental, social, product responsibility and governance focus areas.
   
   
2. With the support of a third party, we conducted interviews with key internal and external stakeholders, including Eaton leadership, customers, suppliers, shareholders and NGOs to determine priority areas.
   
   
3. In addition to our interviews, we reviewed source material from internal risk assessments, ranking and rating agencies, NGOs and investors, and completed an employee survey on key issues.
   
   
4. We then presented the findings to our leadership team, who provided feedback that was incorporated into a final list of sustainability priorities.
   
   
5. We reviewed existing data and interviewed functional leaders to gain a greater understanding of our current state, assessing our strategy, goals, metrics, performance and reporting on each issue.