1 Ratio of net debt to total equity.
2 Average number of full-time equivalents in the reporting period.
As an industrial processor of raw materials, our Group has no higher priority than safeguarding the continuity of supply to our customers and ensuring the energy and processing security that this requires. This is why, with a view to the dependence on Russian gas, we started planning as early as March 2022 how to maintain our energy supplies, especially during the energy-intensive campaigns, and thus assure security of processing in the production plants. The solution we chose was to use extra light heating oil alongside natural gas. This required the conversion of systems in the relevant sugar and starch factories, and ultimately worked well. In the 2022|23 financial year, we also learned to deal even better with the new realities in energy markets and have managed the extreme price volatilities in this sphere well.
Employing extra light heating oil to secure production continuity in the short term does not detract from our long-term sustainability measures. The great lengths to which we are going in the quest for sustainability are reflected, for example, in the fact that in the third quarter of 2022|23, we submitted our targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions along the entire value chain to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a non-governmental organisation, for verification of the targets’ compliance with the Paris Climate Agreement. In the first step, one of our key targets is to reduce the emissions from our production operations (Scope 1 and 2 emissions) by 50% by 2030 compared to 2019|20.
In order to be able to meet the growing environmental challenges and the high ambitions for emission reduction, the responsibility for sustainability, which previously resided with the whole Management Board, was designated an individually assigned Management Board-level function in November 2022 that is now the responsibility of Chief Technology Officer Norbert Harringer. In December 2022, for the first time, AGRANA issued an ESG-linked Schuldscheindarlehen (a loan with bond-like characteristics also known as a promissory note loan). Investor demand was so high that the originally planned deal size of € 100 million was increased to € 235 million. This funding instrument is a major building block for securing the AGRANA Group’s medium-term liquidity in a challenging environment.
We are pleased that these efforts were noticed in the capital market as well. Thus, in the financial year, AGRANA was recognised with the VÖNIX Sustainability Award of the Vienna Stock Exchange for the second time in succession.