What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2021 Sustainability Report SFS identified a range of material issues, such as occupational health and safety, emissions, human rights, socioeconomic compliance. Among these, creating economic value for its stakeholders stands out as a key material issue for SFS.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups SFS engages with:

Stakeholder Group

Customer

Employees

Community/ local authorities

Supplier

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics SFS engaged with its stakeholders through a survey.

What actions were taken by SFS to create economic value for its stakeholders?

In its 2021 Sustainability Report SFS reports that it took the following actions for creating economic value for its stakeholders:

• Creating economic value for employees
• In 2021, SFS paid CHF 3 million in personnel expenses.
• Creating economic value for investors
• In 2021, SFS paid CHF5 million in dividends to shareholders and CHF 1.5 million in interest expense.
• Creating economic value for the government
• In 2021, SFS paid CHF7 million in tax expense and CHF 4.8 million in public levies.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed

Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.1, 8.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Targets: 9.1, 9.4, 9.5

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by SFS, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://sustainability.sfs.biz/en/

Note to SFS: With each case study we send out an email requesting a comment on this case study. If you have not received such an email please contact us.