GENERAL DISCLOSURES

Our stakeholders are our priority

We operate in a dynamic international context, where the involvement of stakeholders - based on the values of honesty, transparency, and open dialog - is essential for pursuing our goal of generating shared economic and social value.

For this reason, adopting a perspective of mutual learning and sharing, we constantly promote activities of listening, interaction, and dialog, in order to develop the most sustainable growth strategies.

In 2022, we updated our stakeholder categories, defining a Stakeholder Engagement Plan that will allow us to engage, on a rotation basis, the majority of our stakeholders. Using different interactive modalities and based on a structured process.

Who are our stakeholders

We are in regular contact with our key stakeholders (people suffering from hearing loss & caregivers, workforce, franchisees & agents, industry & consumers associations, shareholders, providers of capital, & financial community) as well as with hearing aid manufacturers, trade unions, the academia & medical class, indirect suppliers & other value chain actors, regulatory authorities & health care systems, local & global communities, and the media.

PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS & CAREGIVERS

They are our actual and potential customers. We always make sure to engage them via customer satisfaction surveys, market research, focus groups, and individual interviews. We involve them in usability tests to optimize the service and solutions we offer with the highest standards possible. In addition, we consider their caregivers (friends and relatives) to be as much important for us, since they contribute to help them throughout their journey of rediscovering all the emotions of sounds.

WORKFORCE

Our people continuously participate in internal engagement activities. They always have the opportunity to give feedback and participate in annual global meetings by role or area and they can voice themselves out in engagement surveys. Awards, such as the Charles Holland Award, are also an occasion to catch up with our workforce. We have an ad-hoc internal newsletter for promoting and raising awareness on ESG topics.

FRANCHISEES & AGENTS

They are an important point of direct contact with customers, despite not being our employees. We involve them locally, by means of meetings and conventions, and through engagement surveys and focus groups, to identify dedicated training initiatives for them.

SHAREHOLDERS, PROVIDERS OF CAPITAL, FIN. COMMUNITY

We collect their expectations at key meetings such as the Shareholders' Meeting, conference calls, roadshows, industry conferences, company visits, and one-to-one meetings organized with analysts and investors. In addition, we also regularly engage in dialogue with ESG rating agencies.

INDUSTRY & CONSUMERS ASSOCIATIONS

We engage with industry and consumer associations to increase awareness about hearing care and improve customer satisfaction. Consumers are at the core of our business approach, and we constantly strive to meet their needs and requirements, in line with industry trends and standards.

Our materiality analysis

The materiality analysis represents the pivotal process underlying the drafting of our Sustainability Statement, and aims to identify, among the various economic, environmental and social topics, those matters which, at the same time, are the most important for both our Organization and our stakeholders.

Already back in 2021, we introduced the concept of “double materiality”, valuing at the same time both Amplifon’s contribution to individual economic, environmental, and social topics significant to the market, environment and people (ESG materiality), as well as to what extent these global topics and macro-trends can impact the Company’s financial performance and its ability to create value (financial materiality).

This specific dual perspective was utilized also in 2024, employing a dynamic approach, looking at current trends and drivers of our sector and of the ESG world. We are conscious that today’s non-material topics could gain relevance in the near future

what is relevant for us

Find out how we approach our material topics.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION

We know the importance of reducing the environmental impact of our operations and adopting sustainable practices throughout the value chain. Therefore, we are committed to reducing emissions with innovative, low-impact solutions.

Social Information

Our people are the most important asset for our business. It is crucial to attract, develop and retain key resources and to ensure equal opportunities and well-being for our people.

governance information

We conduct our activities following the highest ethical and moral standards, ensuring maximum transparency to our stakeholders. Proper business management is based on the principles of the Code of Ethics, which ensures responsible behaviour.

Constant monitoring of the regulatory framework

We operate in a medical sector, where regulations vary from country to country. We constantly monitor the regulatory framework with the aim of reducing the impact of any unfavorable changes and maximizing the benefits of favorable ones.

Through the establishment of the Regulatory Affairs function, we have implemented a series of measures not only to monitor the regulatory framework in place and any potential change in all the countries in which we operate, but also to ensure a timely reaction to any potential changes in regulation, besides being able to engage in dialogue with institutions and actively take part in debates and conventions to make the voice of the sector heard.

three main regulatory areas

regulation on medical devices

Hearing aids are considered medical devices in all our markets and are subject to strict safety controls. They must comply with national and international regulations that establish product standards and packaging and labelling requirements. Moreover, to be able to sell a hearing aid on the EU market it is necessary that it bears the EC (European Community) marking, to confirm that the product meets the essential requirements of all the EU directives related to medical devices.

regulation on hearing care professionals

The use of hearing aid requires the support of a licensed professional to perform a thorough hearing assessment, as well as of the selection, personalization, application and sale of the device, whose qualifications vary from country to country. In the European Union, only professionals qualified under national law can select, adjust, sell and check the effectiveness of hearing solutions; the profession of hearing care professional is therefore regulated in most EU countries. In 2018 the Register of Hearing Care Technicians was established in Italy. In the US, hearing aids may be distributed only by authorized persons, while in Australia, hearing care professionals and audiometrists must be members of an accredited Australian professional association.

reimbursement conditions

Reimbursement conditions also differ according to different national health systems. There are national health systems that offer hearing aids free of charge to everyone, like in the United Kingdom, and others, like in France and Italy, that partially or fully reimburse the cost of the hearing aid to people with a certain level of hearing impairment. Lastly, some healthcare systems do not offer any reimbursement, like in Spain and in the US.

In all countries, we promote efficient reimbursement systems and we participate in the debate with healthcare companies and regulators, to seek the right balance between free access to hearing care on the one hand, and on the other hand the maintenance of the economic sustainability of health systems.

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