Dear Stakeholders,

The past year has been an important milestone for SGS in fulfilling our sustainability commitments whilst growing the business in line with the 2014 plan. 

During 2011, we invested in embedding sustainability across the business, conducting numerous workshops in our trend countries and engaging more than 300 senior stakeholders across our network. We are encouraged by the enthusiastic response and support from our Affiliates resulting in pledges by the Managing Directors to implement over 250 local sustainability initiatives to complement our global programs on environment (for example: building energy efficiency, green IT, green cars) and people (for example: health and safety, equal employment opportunity, leadership and development).

We have continued to strengthen our global offer with the launch of new sustainability services including landfill management solutions, photovoltaic testing, biogenic carbon and fugitive emissions testing, and a range of services relating to vehicle battery technologies. We have also expanded our laboratory network across Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia, allowing us to invest in more upstream activities.

Looking ahead, our priority remains to uphold operational excellence, build our technical expertise to support ever more complex industries and further drive innovation through our services. 

Globally, we will continue to encourage employees to contribute to our targets and help them to live and work more sustainably. We also plan to expand our program of stakeholder dialogue and will further evaluate our human rights impacts and responsibilities.

We have shown during 2011 how sustainability is helping both SGS and our customers to operate smarter by increasing productivity and efficiency, ensuring quality and safety, reducing risk, delivering trust and enabling speed to market. We are convinced that by working together with our stakeholders, positive change can happen. We hope you find this Report an interesting insight into our world and look forward to hearing your feedback.

Chris Kirk
Chief Executive Officer