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SGS is living up to its reputation of being sustainable with integrity
The biggest challenge for a market leader is to not only remain ahead of competition, but also continuously explore and identify new areas of intervention. At SGS, where‘ integrity’ is the underlying philosophy for all activities, the endeavour is to partner with customers for solutions that go beyond the obvious to deliver substantial benefits across the value chains and all stakeholders. The company uses its scale and expertise to support industries to be sustainable and thereby enable a more sustainable future. Apart from this, it also works towards achieving its sustainability goals as a company and follows an integrated leadership approach to ensure that its impact on society is considered right up to the strategic decision-making level of the group.
In 2017, besides becoming a carbonneutral company, SGS was included in the FTSE4Good ethical investment index for the first time. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index recognised the Group’ s outstanding contribution to environmental sustainability for the fourth consecutive year, identifying it as an industry leader. RobecoSAM, a specialist in sustainability investing, has awarded SGS with its Gold Class sustainability award, in recognition of the company’ s performance on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices in 2017. This is the fourth consecutive year that the company has been awarded this recognition. Furthermore, for the fourth year running SGS Group won the EcoVadis Gold medal and was ranked in the top 1 % of sustainable companies in the world.
SGS India is living up to the commitments of being a sustainable company with integrity. In an exclusive interaction with Team Apparel Online, Monika Sharma, Business Director, Consumer and Retail shares some insights on the directions forward for the India office …
Monika Sharma, Business Director, Consumer and Retail, SGS India
AO: SGS considers‘ integrity’ as being the biggest asset for the company …, what does‘ integrity’ mean to you?
Monika: No real success is possible without integrity. At SGS, it is INTEGRITY FIRST. Our relationship with customers goes way beyond service to a more holistic level. It is more about the‘ Trust’ that we build with our customers to act with transparency and do ethical business. In the words of our CEO, Frankie Ng:“ While striving for continued profitable growth, we need to be ever mindful of the need to build this growth on trust and reputation. When we are under the greatest pressure to perform, we also need to pay top-most attention to business integrity.”
Following this direction, we at SGS have developed a culture to speak up, we are confident enough to raise concerns; fair and smart enough to consider any that are brought to us.
AO: What were the major milestones in 2017 for the India market?
Monika: 2017 was a very successful and exciting year at the SGS, India office. We diversified to augment new capabilities to match the evolving market needs as well as enhanced our service delivery model in matured businesses, like Softlines. Key development areas included the set-up of a fully equipped toy testing laboratory which caters to the entire gamut of toys in the market as per International and IS 9873 and IS 15644 standards; upscaling the personal protective equipment product compliance testing for all types of protective clothing, footwear and gloves( including oven gloves); MRSL analytical testing for range of textile auxiliaries and chemicals and waste water / detox testing.
AO: Why is environment the next big thrust area and what does SGS have to offer in this direction?
Monika: Getting products ready to market is just the first step. Customers, consumers and stakeholders expect commitment to sustainability from brands. The consumer today is well connected, socially aware and highly conscious, which consequently brings in a lot of positive activism for transparency in supply chain. Therefore, nowadays buying
56 Apparel Online India | APRIL 16-30, 2018 | www. apparelresources. com