Estimated reading time - 6 min
Dear Stakeholder,
At Vantiva (formerly Technicolor), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an embedded value managed at the highest level. All strategic orientations, initiatives, and commitments relating to Sustainable Development are reviewed by the Board of Directors and its Governance & CSR Committee.
One of the foundations of our CSR approach has been our longstanding adoption since 2003 and renewed commitment every year to the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), and, more recently, our willingness to integrate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in our CSR reporting. In 2023, we will begin to more strongly target support for access to water and sanitation, and the rights of indigenous people, refugees, and migrants, as our Polish operations did for many Ukrainian refugees during 2022.
More specifically, Vantiva policies and practices prohibit the use of child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, and modern slavery, and any form of discrimination and harassment in its operations and its supply chain, and require our suppliers to comply with our standards. The resulting governance processes have helped to place Corporate Social Responsibility at the heart of our business approach and ensure that commercial needs are appropriately balanced with those of local communities, the environment, our business partners, and, of course, our workforce.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are key for all businesses of the Group in order to reflect the societies we serve and operate within to foster our creativity and promote an equitable approach. We aim to recruit and retain the most talented people from a broad range of disciplines and experiences, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, or ability status. In 2022, we strongly encouraged local initiatives to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in our communities. New initiatives are being launched in 2023 to be more inclusive of visible and non-visible minorities. Beyond our commitment to the UNGC, our focus also includes being accountable to the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), which Vantiva endorsed in 2021.
Focused on supply chain vigilance, in 2018, Vantiva added a more systematic risk assessment of suppliers with the implementation of the EcoVadis assessment platform (an independent global organization allowing companies to assess the environmental and social performance of their suppliers) for suppliers representing a yearly spend of more than € 750 thousand in 2022. This category represents 95.8% of the total spending of the Group. Suppliers representing about 68.1% of total spending in this category had already been assessed by EcoVadis by the end of 2022.
Since 2016, Vantiva has been a full member of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) after adopting its code of conduct in 2014. RBA full membership includes compliance requirements for risk assessment, periodic third-party audits of all critical suppliers, and verified alignment of all RBA code aspects in our own Code of Ethics, with an intense focus on protecting Human Rights.
Concerning climate change and the circular economy, Vantiva took steps to fulfill its responsibilities as a global corporate citizen and committed a carbon trajectory to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and the Net-Zero Standard at the end of 2021. The Group submitted its near-term targets for validation during 2022 with an ambitious short-term outcome below 1.5°C by 2030 (57% absolute reduction in Scope 1+2 emissions by 2027 from a 2021 base year and 52% reduction in Scope 3 emissions from use of sold products per unit sold by 2030 from a 2021 base year). Vantiva further committed that 30% of its suppliers by emissions covering purchased goods and services will have science-based targets by 2027. These near-term targets were fully validated and approved by SBTi during 2023. On the longer-term, Vantiva committed to provide a clearly-defined pathway to reach Net Zero before 2050. The Company also participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for the fifteenth successive year. The Group started implementing eco-design guidelines in 2008 and has long taken a positive stance towards environmental issues in the development, manufacturing, energy use and ultimate disposal of its products, bringing benefits for both customers and the environment.
Content security and protection, areas where the Group has demonstrated strong expertise since its inception, remain high on the CSR agenda. Vantiva has issued a Security Policy and implemented an internal program to address risks such as content leaks affecting customers (video content), suppliers (source code), or employee personal data, as well as to defend its products and systems against cyberattacks or theft of otherwise valuable intellectual property.
Employee health and safety also remain an important focus, demanding continuous vigilance and innovation to ensure we do everything possible to keep our employees safe. Early in 2020, during the beginning of the pandemic, and continuing throughout 2021 and 2022, Vantiva reacted strongly to protect the health and safety of all workers and swiftly launched multiple programs and working groups to safely adapt to the new and changing pandemic conditions, all while continuing to support our customers and business lines. Many aspects, such as the evolution and tracking of requirements and conditions across multiple sites and countries, global management issues, care of employees, families, and communities, and continuity of business and operations, were supervised and monitored by a “Covid-19 Global Crisis Committee” chaired at the highest level of the Company.
For the tenth consecutive year, an external audit of our social, environmental, and societal information reporting took place. Our commitment since 2014 to align our sustainability reporting to the GRI Standards, a worldwide reporting framework on sustainability, relies on diligent data harvesting processes, and audits help us retain focus year after year. For 2022, Vantiva has reported in accordance with the GRI Standards and has successfully completed the GRI Content Index – Advanced Service. Vantiva thereby demonstrates that its non-financial information and disclosures are exhaustive giving stakeholders more control over the transparency, comparability, quality, and accountability of the Group’s sustainability data.
These long-term efforts have all been recognized by external and independent agencies. After receiving Gold Medal accolades from EcoVadis for the past three consecutive years (2018-2020), Vantiva earned its second “Platinum Medal” in 2023, the highest distinction awarded. We now rank among the top 1% of companies worldwide, regardless of size or industry, with a sustainability performance rated “Advanced” in all categories assessed.
In early 2023, for its second year of sustainability assessment by S&P Global, Vantiva moved up in the S&P Global ESG Score 2022 and reached the 98th percentile, ranking among the top 2% of companies in the Communications Equipment industry globally. In 2021, Vantiva achieved ISS ESG “Prime” status for the second time. We also reached the ISS “Best-in-class” status and received the ISS QualityScore – the highest rating awarded by ISS – for both our Environmental and our Social Performance. Vantiva’s ranking assessed by EthiFinance ESG Ratings (formerly Gaïa Research) has steadily improved in past years, and the Group is now ranked, every year since 2019, among the top companies in Europe: in 2020, the Group was ranked number 1. In 2021 and 2022, Vantiva reached an overall ESG score of respectively 82/100 and 84/100, largely outperforming the average benchmark, and was awarded the “Platinum Medal”, the highest distinction by EthiFinance ESG Ratings.
Vantiva remains committed to advancing these goals, which are essential to our business and society.
Luis Martinez-Amago, Chief Executive Officer
