Sustainability

Sustainability reporting

Mercuri International deliver sales performance to organizations globally and locally through expertise and customized solutions. With Mercuri’s unique combination of consulting and training expertise, we help nearly 15,000 companies per year in more than 50 countries, and in over 30 languages, to become more efficient and effective in their sales activities, and achieve necessary improvements in their results. Mercuri’s business model is a 5-step model, which describes the services provided to customers in a structural way of working. This to be able to design and implement our services to reach the best result and desired changes for the customer. 

Mercuri International majority owner is Bure Equity AB, a listed company on the Nasdaq Stockholm Stock Exchange.

This is the first sustainability reporting by Mercuri. Policies and frameworks for sustainability reporting have been developed by the Board of Mercuri International Group and our owners. At Mercuri, we are convinced that the future value creation is depending on a sustainable way of conducting business. Mercuri’s aim is to reinforce a sustainable development through creating awareness of sustainability within the Group and our interested parties. Our sustainability work will be reported to the Mercuri Board of directors regularly.

Sustainability will be an area of continuing development and the result will be reported externally on an annual basis. The area of priority may change year by year. Focus for 2018/2019 for Mercuri will be to develop a materiality analysis to further prioritize the sustainability areas, develop goals and how to measure these goals. The Group CFO is responsible for the coordination of sustainability within Mercuri and the work will be conducted in close operation with local units where local management is responsible for the implementation and day to day follow-up in each unit.

 UN Global Compact’s Ten Principles is the basis for Mercuri’s sustainability. This means Mercuri is operating in ways that, at a minimum, meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.

Human Rights

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Labor

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor;

Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labor; and

Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Environment

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;

Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and

Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Anti-Corruption

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

Policies and guidelines

During 2017, Mercuri has reviewed and updated the relevant policies that have been identified as important for the sustainability reporting. These policies have been approved by the Board of Directors. The policies are; the code of conduct, the whistleblower policy, the environmental policy and the policy for diversity and equal opportunities. 

The policies are the framework for how Mercuri shall act as a responsible company, employer, and supplier on the market. All the employees and other representatives for Mercuri have a responsibility to know and apply these policies in the relevant context. The internal frameworks and policies are revised annually and amended whenever required.

The code of conduct  is a framework for the Mercuri employees and freelancers on how to act and behave professionally in all external as well as internal contacts.

The whistleblower policy is to provide Mercuri employees with a framework to report misconduct and serious incidents relating to the company without fear of reprisal. Company employees shall feel confident that notifications made under the Whistleblower Policy are taken seriously and are handled professionally and confidentially.

The environmental policy includes the framework that all Mercuri representatives should consider regarding the environmental aspects in all parts of our business.

The policy for diversity and equal opportunities describes how Mercuri as an employer shall act to provide equal opportunity when selecting, hiring, promoting, transfer, and compensation to all qualified applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, age, sex, pregnancy, marital status, disability, or any other status protected by law.

Interested parties

Our customers, employees, the board of directors and our owners are the main interested parties of Mercuri International. The prioritized areas of the sustainability work are influenced by our main interested parties.

Prioritized areas for sustainability

Human Rights

Mercuri supports the UN Global Compact principles. Most of the operation is within Europe and Mercuri complies with the legislation on all markets present. Human rights are reflected in the other topics of our sustainability reporting.

In the beginning of 2018, a survey will be sent out to the management in the subsidiaries, where they will answer questions about if any issues regarding the UN Global Compact 10 principles have been identified during 2017. This will be followed up with a similar survey for 2018.

Diversity and equal opportunity

Being a company with international business in many countries in various parts of the world, Mercuri is exposed to cultural differences in the customer- as well as the employee-relation. Mercuri believes in having an organization with many diversities as this is motivational, inspirational and adds business opportunities. The Mercuri code of conduct defines that the group shall be a workplace open for all individuals and the corporate culture gives equal opportunities for everyone, free from harassment and intimidation. A too homogenous organization may limit the perspective and opportunities and risks may consequently be overseen.

No violation of our policy for diversity and equal opportunities has been reported.

By end of the year, 16% of the management were women. During 2017, the 50% of the average number of staff are women. The ratio per geography can be found in note 5 in the 2017 Annual Report.

Attract and retain employees

Being a people company delivering services as the main business, Mercuri’s future is depending on attracting and retaining people with the right knowledge and competence. Mercuri has a solid process for hiring new staff and for assessing the need for competence development through individual meetings on a regular basis.

The demographics of employees is a future risk that already has been addressed. With aging staff, Mercuri will in the coming years face a situation where a potential large number of staff leaving for retirement. One key focus area is to already now position the company by employing, training and developing staff to more than compensate for those going on retirement. Mercuri is constantly looking for new professional staff and this has now been accelerated. Retention of staff is another risk area. There is a trend among the younger generation that individuals stay with companies for a shorter period compared to the older generation. Mercuri is working intensively in shorting the introduction period with focus on the time for a person to become a fully trained consultant with a solid customer platform.

Our employees are also highly attractive on the market among competitors and customers and there is a risk that employees will leave for external challenges. Remaining an attractive employer that offers individual motivational measures such as development and attractive incentive schemes are key for the future success of Mercuri.

To measure the social status, we will keep track and report on the number of days employees are on sick-leave annually.

Environment

The Mercuri business has not a heavy direct impact on the environment, such as industrial production. We encourage minimizing the traveling by air and place meetings respect to the travel distance. All travel should be carefully planned, and the necessity of the physical meeting evaluated versus a more time efficient and environmental friendly virtual meeting. A second area which has a direct impact on the environment is the use office supplies where Mercuri is actively working on finding and implementing digital alternatives.

Phone and virtual meetings are preferred instead of face to face meetings requiring traveling, when not necessary. During 2017 we have seen an increasing use of digital tools and co-operation platforms supporting the virtual meetings. Such meetings include both internal meetings as well as external customer meetings and training sessions.

More and more training material is today made available to the customers digitally rather than physically.

Business ethics and anti-corruption

Business ethics and anti-corruption is a key area within the sustainability area for Mercuri to be a competitive company today and in the future. Mercuri has zero tolerance for corruption and upholds a high standard business ethics. We believe these are decisive cornerstones for the future success of the company. Breach of the business ethics or anti-corruption policies would severely damage the Mercuri brand and limit our possibilities to do business going forward.

All employees have received the code of conduct and the whistleblower policy and are expected to know and follow these. The whistleblower policy has established a possibility for anonymous reporting of misconduct to an external lawyer.

Any indications and reports on misconduct of the code of conduct is treated with the highest priority.

During the year, no incidents under the framework of the whistleblowing policy have been reported. Neither has any crime or corruption occurred that are known by management.

Click here to read Environmental policy .pdf

Click here to read Code of Conduct .pdf

Click here to read Policy for Diversity and Equal Opportunities .pdf

Click here to read Whistleblower Policy .pdf