Corporate Social Responsibility

Taking responsibility is a part of our DNA

Our founder Egmont Harald Petersen grew up in poverty as a son of a single mother. And he never forgot his humble beginnings, even as his business continued to expand. To fulfil his last will, Egmont Harald Petersen’s family transformed his life’s work into a foundation in 1920.

For more than 100 years now, Egmont has been a foundation with a dual purpose: to develop media and support vulnerable children, young people and families.

In the spirit of our founder, we continue to take responsibility for the society we are a part of. We believe that our commitment to act responsible and address our sustainability impacts is essential for being a strong and trusted media company.

Egmont is on a journey towards a more sustainable business.

Read the Egmont 2020 CSR Report

How we work with CSR

Three overall ambitions direct our approach to sustainability: we want to enable a low-carbon economy, empower our people and communities, and embed responsible business practices throughout our organisation. These ambitions support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Reducing CO2 in own operations

Egmont is committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by our business by becoming carbon neutral in our own operations in 2021. This by reducing our energy use, investing in electricity purchasing power agreements (PPA), and buying carbon credits for the remaining CO2 emissions.

Go to Egmont Environmental Policy

Sustainable supply chain solutions

With a strong foundation for assessing our direct and indirect climate impacts, we have set specific targets for reducing CO2 in our operations and moving towards more sustainable solutions together with our suppliers and business partners in high emission areas outside our direct control and influence.

Green partnerships

We continuously work internally and with external partners to improve the data quality of our CO2 emission reporting for hot spots like paper purchase, goods transportation, plastic and packaging purchase and business travel. This will further enable us to optimise our supply chain’s carbon footprint.

49 %

Females in management

EUR 12.2m

For charitable activities in 2020

Since 2013

Signatory to the UN Global Compact

We are people driven

In Egmont we care about the well-being of our employees. We believe that a good life at work is realised through a meaningful job, a great purpose, great cooperation with colleagues, and opportunities to develop professionally. It is one of Egmont’s strategic priorities to be people driven.

Investing in our people

We want to strengthen the learning culture across divisions to eliminate the risk of a workforce gradually losing its ability to stay relevant. This is done through a mix of professional skills development, acquisition of new competencies and new ways of working.

Gender balance

Egmont’s total workforce consists of 48% females and 52% males. And we have 49% females and 51% males in management positions. Egmont aims to have at least two female board members on the Board of Trustees appointed by the annual meeting no later than by 2024.

Diversity

Egmont aims to have a diverse set of competencies. Diversity is not a matter of gender only but can also include educational background, functional experience, cognitive perception, age, cultural background, etc.

Want to know more?

Read Egmont’s CSR reports

Go to Key Figures & Reports

Charitable activities

The Egmont Foundation’s charitable activities help children and young people get life skills and acquire learning. Every year we give approx. EUR 13 million to charitable initiatives, and since 1920 we have donated EUR 423 million.

Go to the Egmont Foundation

Business ethics

Egmont’s Business Ethics Policy communicates how we expect all managers and employees to act with integrity. It includes several legal compliance areas, such as anti-corruption, bribery, gifts and entertainment, competition law, anti-fraud, marketing law, data protection, piracy and illegal use of content, human rights and environment.

Social Compliance Programme

Egmont's Social Compliance Programme focuses on responsible supply chain management and product safety and quality. We monitor third-party manufacturers’ social compliance level via social audits, on-going dialogue and inspections.

Go to Egmont's Social Compliance Programme

Egmont’s Code of Conduct

We work to ensure that relevant business partners sign up to Egmont’s Code of Conduct that clearly states that no use of corruption, bribery or facilitation payments is tolerated.

Go to Egmont’s Code of Conduct

Whistleblowing

Egmont does not tolerate any use of corruption or bribery. Our employees and business partners can express concerns about possible misconduct via Egmont’s whistleblowing system.

Go to Egmont's Whistleblowing Policy

Product safety and quality

We of course want to ensure that all our products are safe to use. This is especially important for products aimed at children. We have a comprehensive test and inspection programme to ensure that our products comply with applicable legislation.