Philips 2015 Annual Report Download - page 183

Sustainability statements 14
Annual Report 2015 183
14 Sustainability statements
Approach to sustainability reporting
Philips has a long tradition of sustainability reporting,
beginning with our rst environmental Annual Report
published in 1999. This was expanded in 2003, with the
launch of our rst sustainability Annual Report, which
provided details of our social and economic
performance in addition to our environmental results.
In 2008, we decided to publish an integrated nancial,
social and environmental report, reecting the progress
we have made embedding sustainability in our way of
doing business. This is also supported by the inclusion
of sustainability in the Philips Mission, Vision and the
company strategy. For more information, please refer
to chapter 4, Our strategic focus, of this Annual Report.
This is our eighth annual integrated nancial, social and
environmental report which has been prepared in line
with the International Integrated Reporting Council
(IIRC) Integrated Reporting (IR) framework, including a
visualization of our value creation process section 4.2,
How we create value, of this Annual Report.
Philips publishes its integrated Annual Report with the
highest (reasonable) assurance level on the nancial,
social and environmental performance. With that
overall reasonable assurance level Philips is a
frontrunner in this eld.
Tracking trends
We continuously follow external trends to determine
the issues most relevant for our company and those
where we can make a positive contribution to society at
large. In addition to our own research, we make use of
a variety of sources, including the United Nations
Environmental Programme (UNEP), World Bank, World
Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD), World Economic Forum and World Health
Organization. Our work also involves tracking topics of
concern to governments, regulatory bodies, academia,
non-governmental organizations (NGO), and following
the resulting media coverage.
Stakeholders
We derive signicant value from our diverse
stakeholders across all our activities and engage with,
listen to and learn from them. Working in partnerships
is crucial in delivering on our vision to make the world
healthier and more sustainable through innovation.
When appropriate and relevant to our business, we
incorporate their feedback on specic areas of our
business into our planning and actions. In addition to
engagement with our customers, our suppliers,
employees, investors, local communities and
governments and non-governmental organizations, we
participate in meetings and task forces as a member of
organizations including the WBCSD, World Economic
Forum, Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC)
and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
A multi-stakeholder project with the Sustainable Trade
Initiative (IDH), a number of NGOs, and electronics
companies was started in 2011 and expanded in 2014
and 2015 to include suppliers in the Yangtzhe river delta.
The program focuses on improving working
circumstances in the electronics industry in China.
Furthermore, we engaged with the leading Dutch labor
union (FNV) and a number of NGOs, including Enough,
GoodElectronics, MakeITfair, the Chinese Institute of
Public and Environmental Aairs, SOMO, Amnesty
International, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth as
well as a variety of investors and analysts.
In addition to face-to-face meetings, webinars and
social media channels provide us with ongoing
feedback on our strategy, performance and emerging
topics. Our sustainability e-mail account
([email protected]) enables
stakeholders to share their issues, comments and
questions with the sustainability team. As described in
the Materiality section below, various stakeholder
groups have been invited to provide input to the
materiality analysis which was updated for the Annual
Report 2015. The table below provides an overview of
the dierent stakeholder groups, examples of those
stakeholders and topics discussed.