Stakeholder engagement

Vopak takes its responsibility by entering into a dialogue with its various stakeholders, including its customers, suppliers and neighbors. We do so because we realize that we can only maintain our carefully built competitive and market position if we exercise care in our dealings with customers, in our service provision and in our attitude towards the environment and communities in which we operate. Vopak seeks to pursue an open information policy towards stakeholders who take an interest in our company. In line with that openness and transparency, we strive to conduct a well-structured dialogue with our stakeholders about our sustainability policy. The outcome is used to refine that policy, since Vopak attaches great importance to the views and input of its stakeholders when formulating further sustainability targets and policy measures, and when making choices with respect to the sustainability dilemmas that may occur in our everyday practice.

Daily contacts

Customers, suppliers and employees meet to share important information every day. In addition, various audits are undertaken, both by Vopak itself (Corporate Insurance, Corporate Internal Audit, Terminal Health Assessment, Project Post Implementation Reviews) as well by our customers and various authorities. These audits aim to assure control for internal purposes, confirm the integrity of our terminals and processes, and pre-assess implementation plans.

Regular contacts

We maintain regular contacts with neighbors, local and other authorities and investors. Organizing around 300 individual meetings, presentations, roadshows and other events enables us to demonstrate our aim to be transparent towards all these target groups. In addition, we organize regular communications through webcasts and by using our website.

Annual contacts

We maintain contacts every year with a wide variety of communities, including our neighbors, non-governmental organizations, sustainability organizations and ministries in the countries in which we operate. Besides maintaining direct contacts with these stakeholders, we undertake various surveys throughout the year. The aim of these sustainability surveys as well as employee and customer satisfaction surveys is to verify the implementation of the suggestions, comments and recommendations we have received at operational and policy levels. Vopak was included in a number of external benchmarks (e.g. VBDO, Carbon Disclosure Project and Transparency Benchmark of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs).