We have evaluated our operating context and how it influences those topics that enable us to create value for society, including shareholders and stakeholders. From this, we defined eight key material topics for 2019.
Because everything we do has either direct or indirect short- or long-term impact on our financial value, for each key material topic we developed performance indicators to measure progress on the outcomes of our value creation model.
From the eight key material topics, we have identified three that are vital if we are to realise our strategic objectives in the short term: Customer experience, Engaged people, and Financial performance and position. The other five topics remain essential for our long-term value creation and support our main three topics.
We strive to better understand what our customers want, and work to improve the customer experience. Steps taken to achieve this include investing in network capacity as well as developing innovative new products and services. At the same time, we want to create simple and convenient customer interaction, and lead through business model innovations.
A positive working environment for everyone who works for or with us is a prerequisite if we want to engage with our people. This means ensuring there is fair compensation and respect and equal treatment for all. Attracting and retaining the right people, providing a safe place to work, by providing learning opportunities and ensuring people feel at home at PostNL, are also important drivers for our people's engagement.
Not only are engaged people happier, they also benefit the company. They are committed to their work ('I love my job') and the goals and values of the company ('I love my company'). And engaged people can increase innovation, productivity and bottom-line performance while reducing costs related to hiring and retention in tight labour markets and highly competitive talent markets.
Executing our strategy will help us generate sustainable cash flow, enabling us to achieve profitable growth across our operations and create value for our investors and the company. This value has a number of dimensions, including revenues, margins, profits, cost efficiency, cash flow, equity, debt and taxes.
We have set ourselves the goal of providing emission-free last-mile delivery across the Benelux by 2030, which requires working to make each kilometre we travel as efficient and sustainable as possible from today. This means investing in our business model and fleet, for example by introducing electric vehicles, energy-neutral sorting centres or e-bike delivery.
We are helping shape the e-commerce market as we transform into a logistics e-commerce company. By introducing quicker and more efficient delivery options for e-tailers and consumers, expanding our online services, and broadening our retail network, we make it easier for all of our customers to send and return parcels.
We are working hard to introduce effective cost-efficiency measures in our mail business model to generate a sustainable cash flow, such as improving flexibility of costs, investing in next-generation sorting machines and through the introduction of the New mail route. Together, these measures are aimed at helping us manage declining mail volumes.
Providing accessible and reliable postal services involves being able to collect, sort and deliver physical mail, at the quality levels expected and demanded, five days a week. It also means ensuring easy access to PostNL post boxes and retail locations. We believe that consolidation is vital to maintain accessible and reliable postal services, which is why the Sandd integration is such an important step forward.
Logistics in the Benelux and in cities are changing, impacting livability and air quality. To accommodate future growth in collection and delivery in cities requires changes to current business models. We work together with a range of partners to reduce logistic movements by consolidating shipments at the edge of cities, and delivering from there using suitable and sustainable vehicles. This results in less traffic congestion and clean transport, which reduces air pollution in urban areas. Our objective is to realise emission-free delivery in 25 Dutch city centres by 2025: free from CO2, NOx and PM10.
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