Over the past years, we have made significant progress in embedding sustainability into our corporate life.

From reducing our environmental impact to improving the well-being of our employees, we are committed to creating transparency and reinforcing ethical business practices. I am pleased to introduce our sustainability report for this year to reflect on this journey following the best fitted practices in the corporate sustainability reporting field.

The electric infrastructure manufacturing industry is at a special crossroads in these developments: we both rely on inputs from the historic system but hold the key to transforming economies through the electrification of key infrastructure from homes to complete power grids.

Towards documenting our journey in this transformation, Hager Group aims to be both transparent about our business operations and to accelerate our transition to sustainable business practices through applying well-established standards. In this report, we give more clarity about what this means to us as an organisation.

Because Hager Group is an independent family company, we can think and plan long-term. We are focused on courageous, impactful decision-making that reflects the core values that underpin our strategy: courage, authenticity and integrity.

On our sustainability journey, it has always been important for us to seek external validation and review with stakeholders how we are progressing. While outside-in feedback and guidance led by our target group managers is of major value, we also learn from our ratings and rankings. They provide us with additional perspectives on where we are doing well and where we have opportunities for improvement.

This year, in parallel to launching our sustainability report, we are relying on a Double Materiality Analysis to define the content of our report according to the latest European Sustainability Reporting Standards. Unlike the classical approach of reporting only on environmental and social impacts of our business we acknowledge with this double materiality concept the fact that risks and opportunities can be material from both a financial and non-financial perspective.

The core underpinning of our approach is our E3 Sustainability Strategy. This strategy builds upon our continued commitment to Ethics, our Employees, and the Environment. I am proud to say that in line with this, 2022 has been pivotal for Hager Group. We have consolidated our Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction actions according to the Science Based Targets initiative and have recently joined the reduced club of Klima­schutz­unternehmen (Climate Protection Company) in recognition of our efforts.

Beyond these achievements, we continue to be one of the industry leaders in the field of electrification. Energy innovation remains a core aspect of our activities with a growth in our activities in the fields of digital innovation and smart energy distribution.

Companies are used to treating sustainability and profitability as two unrelated and often contradictory values that could not be properly balanced. However, we recognise that we cannot focus on profitability alone, as resource depletion and climate change have a sizable impact on our bottom line. Instead, we are building sustainability metrics into how we think, operate, and define success. This way, we can make more meaningful decisions from one end of the value chain to the next while managing our business in a holistic way. I truly believe that by adopting a long-term perspective, redefining success, and adjusting how we measure it, we can inspire a paradigm shift from short term profit maximisation to long term value optimisation, altering the status quo in our industry and throughout the world.

With this report, we aim to provide an open and transparent channel with all our stakeholders. Looking ahead, our sustainability reports will serve as a communication tool setting the highest standards in corporate sustainability governance across our E3 strategy pillars: Ethics, our Employees, and the Environment.

Thank you for reading and continuing this journey with us.

Sincerely,

Daniel Hager

Chief Executive Officer