The "Greater Chemistry – between people and planet" framework underpins a 2022 restructuring that flattened Clariant's management layers to a maximum of six between operational staff and the CEO, replaced its Executive Committee with a leaner Executive Steering Committee holding direct profit-and-loss responsibility, and tied the reorganisation explicitly to sustainability and diversity targets rather than treating them as a separate workstream. Concrete commitments under the framework include a 2030 target to double female representation at management level to at least 30%, and to raise the share of leaders with origins outside Europe from 32% to more than 40%, reflecting the company's global footprint of more than 10,000 employees across over 90 nationalities.

The programme has also translated into measurable social outcomes: in 2025, Clariant became certified by the Fair Wage Network as a global Living Wage employer, confirming that all employees worldwide earn at least a living wage covering essential needs, with an ambition to extend the same principle to contractors and suppliers by 2030. For a specialty chemicals producer competing on innovation and customer relationships as much as on price, embedding sustainability governance into the leadership structure itself, rather than layering it on top, is presented by Cefic's award as a template other companies restructuring around similar pressures could draw on.

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