Across the globe, The Linde Group participates in numerous community projects and initiatives to support local communities. This engagement takes the form of donations, sponsorships, foundations or simply time devoted by our employees. Our strategy here is shaped by a number of key criteria and aims:

• Alignment with core business: We provide long-term support for projects that harmonise in particular with our own philosophy and strategy.
• Focus areas: We have defined focus areas for our community activities. So we support in particular initiatives that promote research, education and science, plus projects where we can step up to our responsibility as a corporate citizen and good neighbour, contributing our specialised know-how as a technology player and industrial gases expert.
• Local context: We are particularly committed to the communities where our employees live and work, and align our activities with local social needs.
• Employee involvement: We encourage staff to get involved in social and environmental activities in their local communities, and provide support them in doing so.
• Emergency relief: Linde as a company and our employees provide fast, efficient emergency relief in the wake of disasters.
• Donations: Our donation guidelines provide a standardised framework for donations within The Linde Group, aligned with the aims of our corporate citizenship strategy.

Cross-regional activities are organised by the Group headquarters in Munich. Local activities are coordinated at regional level. South African Group member Afrox, for instance, donates one percent of its after-tax profits each year to good causes.

As a company, Linde does not make donations to political parties. In the US, however, employees of Linde have set up a federal political action committee to collect donations for politicians, political parties and associations.

We remain committed to our aim of providing key indicators to substantiate our corporate citizenship activities and their contribution to society. In 2010, we carried out a survey of our regional sponsoring initiatives and CR activities across the globe, evaluating around 200 projects. We intend to report global corporate citizenship indicators as of 2012.

top