For more than 120 years, Landis+Gyr AG has been helping energy suppliers and end users improve their energy management. Sustainability is thus part of the company's DNA. So it's no surprise that the Swiss company has now taken the next step with DQS: an external audit of its sustainability report to maximize transparency and credibility.
Manage Energy Better: From Landis+Gyr's motto, you can already tell that sustainability is a high priority here. Headquartered in Cham, Switzerland, the company is one of the world's leading suppliers of energy meters, smart metering solutions and smart grid applications. These technologies and services help reduce energy consumption, optimize operations and create a smarter grid.
As a publicly traded company, Landis+Gyr has a bested interest in informing all stakeholders about its sustainability performance, providing interested parties with a holistic picture. Sustainability reporting in accordance with GRI standards plays a key role in this process.
In the spirit of transparency, the Swiss company commissioned an external audit of its sustainability report for the first time in 2022. The honor fell to DQS: an international and interdisciplinary team of assessors completed the audit in April 2022.
External audit according to the AA1000 Assurance Standard
The audit was based on the AA1000 assurance standard, which defines requirements for the audit of sustainability reports. The audit of the Landis+Gyr report corresponds to a so-called type 2 assurance, which consists of two components:
- An audit of the management approaches and compliance with the reporting principles.
- An audit of all disclosures regarding environmental and sustainability performance in terms of completeness and relevance. This includes key figures, indicators and other non-financial data.
In addition to the intensive examination of the headquarters in Cham, selected sites in China, India, South Africa and the United States were also subjected to an audit by DQS.
Climate neutral by 2030
An important focus of the audit was on greenhouse gas emissions. Landis+Gyr has committed to becoming climate neutral by 2030. Reliable systems for data collection, verification and reporting are essential for this. In particular, the audit team highlighted the traceability of the calculations as a strength. In addition, Landis+Gyr has committed to submitting GHG reduction targets to the Science-Based Targets Initiative.
Verification of compensation-related ESG metrics
In addition to the GRI report, the Short-Term Incentive Plan (STI) was also subject to external verification. In order to ensure the robustness of the results, all STI key figures that were not already part of the GRI report were subjected to an additional audit.
Result: The Assurance Statement
Based on the methodology described above, the audit team concluded that the Landis+Gyr Sustainability Report presents the company's sustainability performance in a transparent and credible manner. Dr. Thijs Willaert, head of the auditing team, particularly highlighted the strategic orientation of sustainability management: "We found it impressive how the ESG strategy, goal setting and management approaches at Landis+Gyr intertwine. The relatively short ESG cycles of three years enable the company to quickly adapt to rapidly changing stakeholder expectations and make increasingly ambitious commitments."
Carlo Diener, Group Project Manager and ESG Specialist at Landis+Gyr, commented on the review process as follows: "The focused and purposeful collaboration with DQS allows us to continue to provide transparent, relevant and reliable information to our stakeholders."
You can view the full Landis+Gyr Sustainability Report 2021 here.
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Dr. Thijs Willaert
Dr. Thijs Willaert is Global Director Sustainability Services. In this role, he is responsible for the entire ESG service portfolio of DQS. His areas of interest include sustainable procurement, human rights due diligence and ESG audits.
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