SGS Turkey Employees Drive Energy and Business Efficiencies

Having implemented various energy conservation measures in the past, SGS Turkey now wishes to pursue additional opportunities to improve its energy efficiency key performance indicators (KPIs) using the EEB Program as a framework for its strategy.The first step, assessing key buildings, has already begun. Once the assessments are completed, options for upgrading facilities will be considered. These may include improving lighting systems, upgrading heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units and investing in renewable energy.

Alongside the EEB program, in September 2019, SGS Turkey launched its “Add Value with Lëss” initiative to help identify sources of waste, reduce excess inventory, improve productivity and adopt a more standardized approach to business processes. There are clear overlaps with this and with the EEB program – reducing our environmental footprint is a shared objective. By combining approaches to facilities management and approaches to employee behaviors, we have already made great strides toward improving overall efficiency in the workplace.

Our accomplishments so far include:

• Introducing guidelines for running efficient meetings
• Setting our heating thermostat to 24 degrees Celsius and removing the ability to override this
• Eliminating single use plastics, such as plastic cutlery, cups and water bottles, across our premises
• A consumer and retail services (CRS) project aimed at achieving paperless laboratories, optimizing processes and improving productivity from January 21, 2011
• Installing segregated waste containers on our premises
• Introducing Meatless Mondays in our canteens
• Designing reusable envelopes, which are now being used across our business

In addition to implementing initiatives that contribute to improving efficiency within SGS Turkey, within the framework of Add Value with Lëss, we have also implemented initiatives that add value to society. For example:

• We have donated books to students at Deniz Yildizları Ortaokulu in Darıca, near SGS Turkey’s Dilvası branch
• In November 2019, employee volunteers ran the 41st Istanbul Marathon. The theme of this year’s marathon was #runforthechildren#. We pledged to donate 750 hospital visits to Theodora Children’s Charity in support of their mission to put a smile on the faces of children in hospital with the help of “giggle doctors”

Seda Bayer, Operational Governance Manager, SGS Turkey, commented on the Add Value with Lëss initiative. “I believe that we need to face up and act on the impact of our consumption habits and on the habits of living things all over the world. We are aware of the great damage mankind has done to the world. With over 1,000 employees in SGS Turkey, I believe that we can bring awareness to life through our campaigns and add more value to society and to the planet with Lëss.”