Chief Executive’s
Introduction

Johnson Matthey is a world leader in environmental technologies and with more than 50% of our profits generated by products that directly benefit the environment, sustainability is a key element of our strategy for the future growth of our business.

For us, sustainability is fundamentally about the best long term way to run a business. There is growing concern globally, including among our employees, our customers, the communities in which we operate and others with whom we work closely, about the way countries, companies and people are using the world’s resources. This is affecting people now in many ways and our decisions and actions today will affect future generations for a long time to come.

In December 2007 we launched Sustainability 2017, a long term vision for the whole group that is playing an important role in helping all of us at Johnson Matthey to set our direction and aspirations for what we want to achieve in the future. Our aims for this ambitious plan are to at least double our earnings per share whilst achieving zero waste to landfill, zero accidents and halving the key resources that we consume per unit of output by 2017, the 200th anniversary of the founding of the company. This is the first time that we have set out a vision in this very important area and we wanted it to be challenging and long term.

For Johnson Matthey, there are two key thrusts to our sustainability vision, one with an internal focus and the other external. The first is about being more efficient with the resources we use as a business and the second is about designing new products that help our customers to be more sustainable and competitive.

Since the launch of the vision we have begun the process of embedding sustainability into every aspect of our business planning and decision making. As a first step to achieving this, in February 2008 all businesses presented their own sustainability plans as part of the group’s annual budget review process. We have given guidance to all our people and given focused training to key functions to support them in delivering these plans. We are also working increasingly with our suppliers and other partners to engage them in delivering our sustainability vision for 2017.

Sustainability is a challenging area for business but also a very exciting one for Johnson Matthey. We know it isn’t an overnight achievement; realising our goals will be done through a million small actions involving all of our employees. We have now set out our vision and our aspiration but we look to all people in the business to be leaders in achieving this ambitious goal.

In this report we explain what sustainability means to Johnson Matthey, our progress so far and the work we are doing as we begin to work towards achieving the goals we have set. As a responsible company, we need to be clear about our sustainability goals and how we deliver them for our customers and society through better products and fewer impacts. By doing this we will benefit from continuing to be profitable and growing in our chosen markets.

Neil Carson

Chief Executive

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