Embedding sustainability

Sustainability means more to us than concentrating on ecological and social issues: sustainability is a question of attitude and a way of working. It drives how we do business and is an integral part of our corporate strategy. We strive to enable our employees to understand the significance of sustainability with respect to both themselves and their professional environment, and to conduct themselves accordingly.

While METRO may be able to drive the issue in a top-down approach, each one of the approximately 98,000 employees is our ambassador and can effectively contribute to our impact on sustainability.

To integrate sustainability aspects into relevant business processes and decision-making processes our company has various measures and tools available for advancing the sustainability embedding process:

• Approaches to responsible company management and acting with integrity, including our sustainability approach METRO SUSTAINABLE, our Guiding Principles, our Code of Conduct and our corporate governance and compliance structures

• Principles, self-commitments and positions as well as sustainability-related targets that provide directional guidance and include compliance with laws as well as meeting additional requirements. One example is our overarching Policy for Human Rights. We are committed to complying with internationally recognised human rights – not just within our own operations, but also along our entire value chain.

• Guidelines such as the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals
• Linking the remuneration paid to the Management Board and the global senior management with the assessment of the sustainability performance of METRO in the rating of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and the achievement of certain sustainability related targets
• Involving our employees via our quarterly employee survey, various sustainability activities for example on UN Sustainable Gastronomy Day as well as via our social network platform

• Employee development programmes that integrate sustainability issues such as our ambassador programme METRO SUSTAINABLE Leadership Programme.
• Memberships in associations and initiatives as well as committee work; the most important memberships are listed (PDF:) here
• Collaboration and dialogue with decision-makers in politics and society.