The ultimate responsibility for implementation of the ESH-Policy Statement and the Environmental & Safety Vision remains with the Executive Board of the Automotive Systems division. The Board has organized Environmental & Safety within the division according to the principles below:

Environmental & Safety as ultimate Senior Management Responsibility

On Executive Board level the Senior Vice President Quality is responsible for Environmental & Safety. He reports to the CEO of the Automotive Systems division who is a member of the Executive Board of Continental AG. Additionally, a functional reporting line exists to the corporate Senior Vice Presidents responsible for Quality & Environmental and Occupational Health, Industrial Hygiene, Safety & Security. The operational responsibility for Environmental & Safety lies within the Business Units and Product Lines of the Automotive Systems division (Line Management). This applies to central functions and plants simultaneously. Especially the Plant Managers have a predominant responsibility ensuring compliance with ESH-related requirements.

Support by Internal Experts

Line Management is being supported by a network of internal ESH experts. Those experts have the following tasks: Support, consult, inform, initiate, monitor and control. Experts can be found on different levels of the organization: 

• Division: Department Environmental & Safety, Department Environmental Management in Product Development
• Region: ESH-Manager North-America & Mexico, Coordinators for Environmental Management in Product Development in Asia, North- & South-America
• Plant: ESH-Coordinators

Systematically Improve

In order to ensure regulatory compliance of divisional operations and to continuously improve environmental performance Environmental Management Systems according to ISO 14001 have bee introduced to all plants worldwide.Those systems are following the Plan-Do-Check-Act management approach. A Senior Management Representative is responsible for implementation, further development and monitoring of the system. Regular reporting to Plant Management and to Business Unit Management ensures adequate information of Senior Management.

Learning from each other

Monitoring and surveillance of environmental performance and regulatory compliance occurrs by internal auditors and appointment of legally required commissioners/officers. The internal audit teams consist of representatives from plant and divisional level. According to a divisional audit schedule those teams audit all plants and central functions worldwide annually. Results are reported to Senior Management regularly. Primary objective of this audit scheme is to ensure know-how transfer between the organizational units audited and to promote standardiation.

Another means to enhance exchange of experiences and Best Practise among experts within the organization are regional ESH-conferences conducted in Europe, America and Asia on an annual basis.

Three to four times a year workshops are being conducted for the Environmental Management in Product Development network. Representatives from all product lines are being informed about latest legal and customer requirements, practises and internal standards.

On corporate level corporate and divisional ESH-functions meet four times a year for an ESH Jour Fixe. The purpose of this meeting is to decide on and monitor corporate wide initiatives and programmes and to promote cross-divisional cooperation. 

The performance of internal processes is being conducted on basis of worldwide applicable management guidelines and process descriptions. They are documented in the Automotive Systems Management Manual which is binding for all organizational units worldwide.