Code of Conduct
Our suppliers are obligated to fully comply with the content of the OMV Code of Conduct, and our supply chain partners are required to sign it. Our activities, both through direct operations and indirectly through our value chain, may have an impact on society, the environment, and the economy. Business partners are therefore requested to extend all applicable requirements to their respective business partners, thereby ensuring the application of our Values and the principles of our Code of Conduct, including ethical behavior, throughout our entire value chain. The positive impacts of upholding OMV’s business standards by fostering an ethical and transparent business environment through strong internal regulations, as well as active engagement with suppliers and business partners to establish a positive corporate culture and continuously promote sustainability awareness, are addressed through this overarching policy. For the Code of Conduct, unless otherwise specified, the scope of the policy, involvement of senior-level management, reference to third-party standards (where relevant), interests of key stakeholders in setting the policy (where relevant), and how the policy is made available to potentially affected stakeholders are covered in E1 Climate Change.
Corporate Procurement Directive and Purchase to Pay Standard
OMV’s Corporate Procurement Directive describes the overall process of supplier engagement and supplier management, including how human rights aspects are embedded in supplier prequalification, audits, and meetings. By following the guidelines on active engagement with suppliers and business partners, a positive corporate culture can be established and sustainability awareness can be continuously promoted across our network. The Purchase to Pay Standard defines the minimum requirements for the Group-wide Purchase to Pay process, encompassing all existing regulations within the process scope. This standard pertains to activities such as requesting, purchasing from external suppliers (excluding inter-company purchases), receiving, accounting, and paying for goods and services. The dependence and economic instability of business partners, resulting from their strong reliance on OMV payments, are addressed through the Purchase to Pay Standard and the Corporate Procurement Directive. Biannual checks are implemented by the Governance & Analytics and Strategy & Digitalization procurement units to monitor the implementation of the Procurement Directive. These documents outline the procedures and payment terms that guide the timeframe within which invoices from our suppliers and contractors should be paid, thereby mitigating the risks associated with economic instability and fostering a more stable relationship with our business partners.
Both the Corporate Procurement Directive and the Purchase to Pay Standard apply to OMV Aktiengesellschaft and all its fully consolidated subsidiaries, including Borealis AG and OMV Petrom S.A. and their subsidiaries. They also partially apply to SapuraOMV Upstream Sdn. Bhd. and its subsidiaries. The principles and minimum standards stipulated in this Directive apply to all purchasing activities within the OMV Group, that are managed by OMV Group Procurement, while some goods and services, such as renewable fuels and feedstock and trading activities, are purchased through other departments. OMV’s Corporate Procurement Directive and Purchase to Pay Standard are signed and approved by the Executive Board. The most senior level with accountability for the Corporate Procurement Directive is the Chief Procurement Officer, while for the Purchase to Pay Standard it is the Chief Information Officer, who reports directly to the CFO.
The Corporate Procurement Directive and the Purchase to Pay Standard have been developed through extensive alignment with internal stakeholders, including accounts payable and business representatives, and are also based on information acquired during our collaboration with external partners CDP and EcoVadis. They are made available to all OMV employees via OMV’s Regulations Alignment Platform on the OMV intranet. Relevant aspects for suppliers are incorporated into contractual agreements. For details on how we engage with our value chain workers, see S2 Workers in the Value Chain.
To ensure we have a standardized approach to payment conditions for all our suppliers and contractors, including those from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we stipulate 60-day standard payment terms in the Corporate Procurement Directive and Purchase to Pay Standard. We continuously monitor payment terms to ensure the 60 days payment term is not exceeded for our suppliers. To prevent such occurrences, one day prior to expiry of the payment term, the SAP system proposes for payment all invoices that are due, and they are paid automatically the next day without the need for manual intervention. Where invoices are blocked for payment (e.g., for tax reasons), the reasons are analyzed, and remediation measures are initiated.
The Corporate Procurement Directive outlines specific processes related to supplier engagement and management, which are detailed in the following section.
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
OMV’s SRM framework not only focuses on managing strategic relationships with our suppliers and contractors but also incorporates sustainability into supplier segmentation, performance, meetings, and innovation. To support OMV on its transformation journey to becoming a leader in innovative sustainable fuels, chemicals, materials, and the circular economy, it is crucial to ensure that suppliers are encouraged to innovate. This helps unlock their potential, and the innovative solutions they develop provide an opportunity to enhance and strengthen partnerships between the Company, Procurement, and suppliers. OMV responsibly manages supplier relationships, ensuring fair behavior, by incorporating sustainability requirements into supply chain and procurement processes, such as purchase to pay, supplier audits and assessments, supplier segmentation, performance, meetings, and innovation. This approach fosters positive change and addresses potential negative impacts such as economic disruptions from delayed payments.
To enhance supply chain resilience and compliance with Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) requirements, we revised our supplier risk management process in 2024 and built a new risk profile in our internal IT systems for Tier 1 suppliers. This risk profile considers three criteria: sustainability risk, procurement risk, and HSSE risk.
Prequalification
Supplier prequalification is part of precontractual activities, during which OMV collects information from a potential supplier with the purpose of evaluating compliance with our HSSE and sustainability requirements. The goal of the prequalification process is to screen potential suppliers before bringing them on board to ensure that only those suppliers that meet our HSSE and sustainability standards are considered for future collaboration.
Prequalification is based on a standardized list of elements and objectives that align with the OMV Group’s HSSE Management System (e.g., HSSE Policy, ISO 9001, 14001, 45001) and our Sustainability Framework (e.g., Sustainability Policy, Human Rights Policy, and Grievance Mechanisms).
Supplier Selection
Following prequalification, Procurement and business representatives select the best suppliers based on a predefined set of commercial and technical criteria during a tender process. To support the overall OMV Group Sustainability Targets 2030 and the Sustainable Procurement ambition to give sustainability a “value” in sourcing, the Procurement department has included two criteria to assess the sustainability performance of the bidders in their commercial evaluation: the EcoVadis score and completion of our climate change questionnaire.
In 2024, OMV invited more than 1,400 suppliers to respond to a simplified climate change questionnaire, which was developed internally based on the CDP structure. In addition to reporting their emissions, we asked suppliers whether they have carbon reduction targets in place and invited them to share with us any initiatives or projects to reduce carbon emissions in which they would like us to participate. Suppliers were selected based on spend, estimated carbon emissions volume, and the carbon intensity of the goods and services purchased from them. In addition, individual meetings and webinars were offered to our suppliers to help them better understand the requirements of the climate change questionnaire or the TfS assessment, and why this information is important to OMV.
Risk Assessments
Understanding a supplier’s risk is an important factor in deciding whether and how we conduct business with them. OMV Procurement has built a new Risk Profile to enhance supply chain resilience and compliance with the requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), based on three major risk areas: Sustainability, Procurement, and HSSE. Furthermore, OMV has a screening process in place to ensure that parties sanctioned by the EU or international organizations, such as the United Nations, are not accepted as procurement partners.
Audits
OMV conducts two types of audits of its suppliers and contractors: on-site Together for Sustainability audits that focus on the sustainability performance of a company, and audits performed by an external auditor. The audits are carried out as part of the prequalification process and/or during contract execution. The aim of the audits is to measure the performance of our suppliers and define actions that will enable them to optimize their performance and meet OMV requirements. During the external audits, we pay special attention to the financial stability of our suppliers, their strategy and organization, supply chain, sustainability (e.g., social and environmental issues), and their cybersecurity performance.
Each audit finding classified with a red flag is followed up and analyzed by the Procurement team in collaboration with business representatives and any other relevant function (e.g., HSSE, Legal, Internal auditing, and Compliance). Information on the outcome of the audit is made available to the supplier, and the supplier is requested to submit a proposed corrective plan with concrete measures and an implementation timeline. In 2024, 13 audits (2023: 22) resulted in follow-up measures.
Supply Chain Carbon Transparency
We aim to continuously manage and decrease the carbon volume of our purchased goods and services. OMV is fully committed to climate change mitigation and responsible resource management. Only by working together with our suppliers will we be able to define joint low-carbon initiatives to continuously decrease the carbon emissions in the supply chain and meet our Paris Agreement commitments.
Supplier Capacity Building
OMV works together with its suppliers to improve overall sustainability performance by inviting them to individual meetings or webinars to increase awareness of the importance of participating in TfS assessments or completing our climate change questionnaire. We also include topics related to sustainability and low-carbon procurement in our annual strategic supplier meetings and invite key suppliers to deep dive workshops on innovation.
In 2024, the topics of sustainable and low-carbon procurement were also included on the agenda for our annual strategic supplier meetings (e.g., Innovation – How can we create sustainable value through innovation? Climate Change – How can we build successful alliances on the path to net zero? Circular Economy – How can we collaborate to effectively implement circular solutions?).
We actively engaged not only with our suppliers, but also with buyers on sustainable procurement and supplier innovation practices. A total of 155 buyers (2023: 205) from OMV, OMV Petrom, and Borealis participated in several awareness-raising sessions throughout the year. The focus was on engaging buyers on sustainable procurement, supplier relationship management, and supplier innovation. In 2024, nine meetings were organized with our strategic suppliers, during which commercial, technical, HSSE, and sustainability topics were discussed. In total, seven deep dive workshops on innovation were also held with key suppliers.
Local Content
We aim to support the local communities in the locations where we operate by fostering economic development. Local procurement strengthens the local economy and meets the local procurement expectations of neighboring communities. Increased local procurement has had the added benefit of reducing business disruption in recent years, as well as the potential for a smaller carbon footprint due to the reduced transportation distance of the goods purchased. In 2024, the spend with local suppliers at Group level was 71.1% (2023: 71.2%).