At SGS, sustainability is about managing a long-term profitable business while taking into account all the positive and negative environmental, social and economic effects we have on society.

Since 2008, we have been developing and implementing a formal group-wide sustainability strategy across our business units and geographical regions. The heads of business functions each work in collaboration with the Vice President of Corporate Sustainability to design, pilot and implement the core programmes that address our key sustainability impacts. All our programmes are aligned to The Plan (our corporate business plan).

The key elements of our corporate sustainability programme are:

• Governance 
  SGS is committed to maintaining universally accepted standards of corporate governance and business integrity, both across our operations and in our approach to sustainability.
• Sustainability Management System
  Our Sustainability Management System defines and measures the Company’s sustainability impacts, as well as how we engage stakeholders, implement programmes, and monitor and communicate our progress.
• Measuring our performance
  We use the Group financial management platform to gather and consolidate sustainability data, and track performance across more than 80 quantitative indicators.
• Our stakeholders
  We continually consult stakeholders at corporate, regional and business unit levels to help drive improvements to our service offering and our approach to managing and reporting sustainability.