Interests and Views of Stakeholders

As an international company, our business activities impact the lives of a large number of different people. Appropriately aligned stakeholder engagement is essential so as to determine the Group sustainability strategy’s material areas for action and become aware of stakeholders’ increasing and changing expectations at an early stage. The Volkswagen Group understands its obligations with regard to stakeholder engagement to include systematic and continuous interaction with our key interest and stakeholder groups within society, actively listening to them, and taking account of their input when developing our strategies. The goal is an open, constructive and also critical exchange with the stakeholder groups shown in the chart. We endeavor to understand their requirements and expectations of us, to discuss key topics from the Group sustainability strategy regenerate+ with them and to explain how these tie in with the Group strategy and its implementation.

Our stakeholders are defined as individuals, groups or organizations who have an influence on or are influenced by the course or the result of corporate decisions. The Volkswagen Group has identified ten groups as the most important stakeholder groups. Our employees and customers are at the center of the stakeholder network. Based on continuous stakeholder analysis, we also identified eight more groups. Continuous communication between internal and external stakeholder groups is important to the Volkswagen Group. In this context, the Supervisory Board and the Works Council act not only as supervisory and advisory bodies but also as interfaces between internal and external stakeholders. As the supervisory body, the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group is regularly informed of the views and interests of the affected stakeholders with respect to the sustainability-related impacts in accordance with both statutory and its own reporting requirements. Due to the fact that the Supervisory Board is required to provide its consent, it is directly involved in the decision-making process, especially in decisions of fundamental importance. It has equal numbers of shareholder and employee representatives. so as to achieve a balance of interests, views and rights of employees at the highest level of the Group.

The Volkswagen Group builds the interests of its customers into its strategy and business model by focusing its brands on customer centricity, innovation and sustainability. The brands and regions have their own stakeholder engagement strategies and strive to ensure through customer surveys and market research that their products and services meet customers’ expectations.

The Volkswagen Group’s task is to bring together and coordinate the activities in an integrated framework. This framework includes:

• Stakeholder engagement on a Group level with specific formats and a focus on stakeholders relevant across the Group
• Advising and coordinating the brands and regions on the implementation of their stakeholder engagement activities
• Carrying out regular stakeholder analyses and stakeholder surveys

In the reporting year, the Volkswagen Group developed the stakeholder engagement strategy into a relationship strategy. To this end, we introduced new formats intended to create the opportunity for even more interactive and transparent communication on important sustainability issues relevant to corporate strategy and society so that stakeholders’ suggestions and recommendations can be even better incorporated in future. The Volkswagen Group’s stakeholder engagement is primarily guided by our Group strategy. In addition, stakeholder interests concerning topics relevant to sustainability are taken into account by the specialist functions responsible. Further details on this can be found in the relevant topical standards, particularly in the chapters on social information.

In accordance with the requirements of the ESRS, the Volkswagen Group performed a double materiality assessment, which is also referred to as a materiality assessment in the following. A detailed description is provided under “Procedure for and results of the double materiality assessment”. As part of developing the regenerate+ Group sustainability strategy, content and topics from the materiality assessment were routinely incorporated into the focus of our dialog activities and into other formats such as the reputation study. This annual study was performed between 2017 and 2023 in order to regularly identify potential impacts on stakeholder interests and Group strategy and take these into account during strategy development. Due to the changing economic, social, and regulatory framework conditions, both the reputation indicator and the study were fundamentally revised in 2024 and redesigned for the collection of new data in 2025. It makes a decisive contribution to anchoring stakeholder engagement in the Group sustainability strategy and, from 2025, will be measured using the Global Reputation metric for the Group and reported to the Board of Management and Supervisory Board in connection with additional regenerate+ metrics. Eliciting this KPI allows us to gain a holistic view of attitudes and opinions on the company and enables us to identify whether and how evaluations change over the course of time.

Communication formats are geared toward the interest groups in question. These range from annual stakeholder dialogs on strategic orientation and the Group’s development to event-related communication formats on current topics from business, society, and politics.

The publication of the regenerate+ Group sustainability strategy was accompanied by a stakeholder engagement campaign in order to enter into direct dialog with target groups. This also comprises the employee stakeholder group, which is informed about the content of the new strategy via a specific information platform on the intranet, by means of published articles and presentations, and through digital information events. In addition, employees were able to ask their questions or express interest through emails, contact forms or direct responses at the events.

The interests and views of value chain workers and Corporate Citizenship policies are also integrated into the entire Group through the Group sustainability strategy regenerate+. Project and stakeholder management relating to the topic of Societal Impact, including the subtopics of Corporate Citizenship and donations, takes place on site and is the responsibility of each unit concerned. This also includes the views and interests of affected communities.

A description of the integration of the topic of human rights throughout the Volkswagen Group is provided within the framework of the compliance management system, which regulates compliance with human rights due diligence, in the “Employees and non-employees” chapter and within the framework of the responsible supply chain system (ReSC system) in the “Workers in the value chain” chapter.

“The Group Sustainability Forum” was held in Berlin in October 2024. An intensive dialog on the Group sustainability strategy and stakeholder interests took place with representatives from the science community, NGOs and industry and other stakeholders.

As part of the dialog event and in the context of the revision of stakeholder engagement, we reorganized the independent Group Sustainability Council in terms of both its nature and its composition. The Sustainability Council’s first two terms of office were focused largely on the topics of reputation and the company’s holistic strategic direction. The new concept now aims to challenge and jointly further develop the relevant topics in the Group sustainability strategy that were identified in the materiality assessment. The new Sustainability Council is comprised of one group of experts per dimension of regenerate+. Three selected and independent external experts work together with three internal representatives from the Group in Sustainability Practice Groups and jointly further develop the strategic topics. This new format allows us to ensure that feedback for and ideas on the Volkswagen Group’s strategy and initiatives are used in their continuous further development. The new Sustainability Council also has the opportunity to share the results of its work and ideas with the Group Board of Management at regular intervals in meetings and dialog formats.

The council’s twelve external members were spread among the four dimensions of regenerate+ as follows: