2
Foreword DLG plays an important part as both a buyer and a supplier of raw materials, crops and feedstuffs in the first link of the food production chain, and DLG is also made up of a number of food companies. Inherent in this role is our responsibility to guarantee food safety, which requires DLG to maintain focus on all links of the value chain. In DLG, we have adopted a strategy stating that we intend to achieve a turnover of 8 billion euro by 2016. We are already close to our target in our 2013 financial statements with a turnover of 7,9 billion euro. DLG wishes to generate growth through acquisitions and by entering into partnerships in Denmark and abroad within our three principal areas: farm supplies; vitamins and minerals; and service & energy. As we continue to grow abroad, our corporate social responsibility (CSR) becomes an object of keener focus. The number of suppliers and customers is steadily increasing, and it is important for us to comply with key principles of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption, because we wish to do this as a business and because, in our view, the fact that we are a corporation with almost 8.000 employees means that we have social responsibility. Our occupational safety and health procedures exemplify an area where there is always room for improvement, despite our enormous efforts and continuous focus. This is evident in our occupational injury statistics where over the past 18 months we have unfortunately witnessed two tragic fatal accidents. This is deeply regrettable and emphasises the importance of having continuous focus on improving our safety procedures across the group. It is essential that we constantly seek to improve and emphasise safety at the workplace to avoid accidents in general and severe accidents in particular. In 2012, we joined the United Nations Global Compact, which is an international initiative comprising ten principles focused on responsible business operations. As part of the UN Global Compact, DLG works to implement the principles within human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption in the group’s day-to-day operations. At the same time, DLG undertakes to actively communicate the group’s CSR activities and results in an annual Communication on Progress (COP) report. This is the first COP in which we publish our goals and initiatives in a combined report, at the same time that we describe where we wish to proceed over the next year. That said, DLG’s involvement with CSR is nothing new. We have been involved with CSR activities for years. The new aspect of these efforts is that we are now focused on systematising and coordinating these efforts across the group, and this CSR Report is part of these efforts. In so doing, we have launched a process in which we seek to create a general view of the most significant CSR initiatives within the group and of how we deal with them. This year’s focus has been on developing an overarching CSR Policy for the group. The next step is for the individual business areas to work to understand their most significant CSR challenges and to stipulate precise targets for what they wish to achieve in the years ahead. We are very pleased with the fact that the publishing of this report means that we have launched a more systematic effort to improve DLG’s corporate social responsibility. Lars Sørensen CFO Kristian Hundebøll CEO 3