Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), i.e. the social responsibility of companies in terms of sustainable business, is very close to our hearts at usd. Many people here are personally involved and as a company we see it as our duty to make a sustainable contribution. We have therefore been operating a CSR management system for a number of years that guides our goals and measures.
As part of our CSR management, we are guided by the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) in the divisions of human rights, labor, environmental protection and anti-corruption. And since the adoption of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we have also been guided by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out in it.
In 2024, we specifically aligned our measures with five focus topics of the SDGs: Quality Education, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Respoinsible Consumption and Production and Climate Action. Our Environmental Policy and our Corporate Social Responsibility Policy set out our goals in concrete terms, while our annual Sustainability Report creates transparency about our organization and the measures taken in the respective year.
"Above all, it is the numerous initiatives of our employees that make me proud of what we are achieving as part of our corporate social responsibility measures. But external stakeholders are also increasingly interested in our CSR status,” says Executive Board Member Andrea Tubach.
In addition to legal requirements at a national and European level, the obligation to provide evidence to our clients increased in 2023. The independent external assessment of our CSR management system by external rating companies is therefore important to us. We have been working with the rating agency EcoVadis since 2022. In 2024, usd AG was once again awarded the silver medal.
Our Compliance & Legal Officer, Franziska Aulbach, is particularly happy about the results of this year's audit: “This award shows that we are among the top 15 percent of companies rated by EcoVadis. And as EcoVadis also raises the bar every year to achieve this medal, we are proud to be part of this group."
