Impact on sustainable development

Integrating UN Sustainable Development Goals into our strategy and value chain

As a large company, we create value across society in a number of ways, from our daily presence at millions of front doors, through the people who work for and with us, and the communities we serve. We believe that being a responsible business partner and a good employer—ensuring fair compensation, safeguarding labour and human rights, stimulating diversity, equity & inclusion, preventing discrimination, and protecting privacy, while focusing on the needs of all our stakeholders, including our shareholders—has helped us become the company we are today.

Our strategy emphasises creating long-term value, with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) forming an integral part of our approach. These goals provide a global framework for addressing challenges that impact us all, and we have embedded them into how we create value, aligning them with our key material topics and broader impact. The SDGs influence our value creation model, which is detailed in the Our value creation model infographic, and demonstrates how our strategic priorities directly contribute to achieving these global goals.

SDGs and our value chain

We have identified four focus SDGs where our business activities and value chain have the greatest impact. From our own operations, decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) is our most relevant SDG, followed by climate action (SDG 13). Through collaboration along our value chain, we focus on making progress on industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9) and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12).

Because all SDGs are interconnected, our focus on these four goals positively impacts other SDGs. For example, progress on SDG 13 enhances outcomes for good health and well-being (SDG 3) by reducing our negative impact on air quality, while innovations under SDG 9 contribute to quality education (SDG 4) through skill development and knowledge-sharing in emerging technologies. By embedding the SDGs into our strategy and operations, we reaffirm our commitment to sustainable, inclusive, and responsible growth. More information about our contribution to the SDGs can be found in the General disclosures later in the report.

“As a large company, we create value across society in a number of ways”