Stakeholder Engagement and Materiality

Maintaining continuous dialogue with stakeholders is critical to long-term success.

We engage stakeholders to inform the development of our sustainability strategy, find out more about their expertise, expectations and priorities, and obtain their feedback. We see it as essential to have a good understanding of the issues that matter to our stakeholders and why they are relevant. Through this continuous dialogue we gain insights that enable us to align our sustainability initiatives to stakeholder requirements and ensure they deliver value to society.

Stakeholder	Why We Engage	How We Engage
EMPLOYEES AND SUPPLIERS	Our people are essential to our business. We motivate them by discussing their performance and providing them with training and opportunities. Our suppliers support us in the smooth delivery of our services. In turn, we need to understand how we are adding value to their businesses.	Global employee engagement program, CATALYST SGS intranet portal SGS Inside newsletter Add Value with Lëss – internal initiative aimed at increasing efficiency Training programs, videos and e-learning modules SHINE Onboarding Employee Representation Councils (e.g. European Works Council “Euroforum”) Supplier self-assessment Supplier Code of Conduct Supplier audits
CUSTOMERS	Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. It is important for us to know if we are achieving our goal of making their businesses more efficient, profitable and sustainable.	One-to-one meetings SGS-hosted conferences, seminars and webinars Customer surveys, e.g. Voice of the Customer White papers Customer portal
GOVERNMENTS AND INDUSTRIES	Governments and industries are often moving in the same direction that we are. We need a clear picture of how we contribute to driving innovation, promoting sustainable development and shaping markets.	SGS-hosted conferences, seminars and webinars Membership meetings and events White papers Our Governments and Institutions business line
INVESTORS	Our investors are vital to our ongoing success and growth. We constantly review market analyses, and aim to be assessed as both a sound investment and a sustainable business.	Annual General Meeting SGS Investor Days Meetings with investors and analysts Responses to analyst questionnaires
COMMUNITIES AND THE PLANET	Our operations affect, and are affected by, our communities and the planet. We evaluate our sustainability endeavors to ensure they are recognized as being among the very best – both regionally and in the TIC industry.	Annual community survey to measure the impact of community investment One-to-one meetings with NGOs and responses to questionnaires White papers
CONSUMERS	Our services ensure that consumers can trust the products they buy. Through understanding our end consumers, we learn if our services support our reputation for delivering confidence and assurance	Certification and product labeling Direct marketing and communication with certain B2C products

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Materiality Process and Results

To commemorate Earth Day, we look at how SGS employees in the Philippines create value to society by planting saplings at the La Mesa Watershed Reservation every year to help prevent deforestation.