SIGNA is committed to the guiding principle of sustainable development. As it is, the company already lives by the values of economic success, climate protection, integrity and social responsibility. In order to underscore its claim, SIGNA has now joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) with its two major real estate companies, SIGNA Prime and SIGNA Development. UNGC is the world’s largest and most significant initiative for sustainable business. “By joining the UNGC, we underscore our commitment to the responsible corporate governance that is embedded in our core values and will continue to be promoted strategically in future,” said Christoph Stadlhuber, CEO of SIGNA Real Estate Austria.
The UNGC’s vision is an inclusive, sustainable global economy based on ten universal principles. In the long term, these principles are aimed at initiating transformational processes in companies and strategically anchoring sustainability along the entire value and supply chain. They cover the core issues of human rights, labour standards, corruption prevention, the climate and the environment.
“Our high-quality projects generate value for current and future generations. As a major real estate investor in Europe, it’s particularly important to us to improve the climate balance and contribute to securing the long-term quality of life for everyone,” Stadlhuber explains. By joining the UNGC, SIGNA commits itself to integrating the UNGC and its principles into its own corporate strategy, corporate culture and day-to-day business and to working towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In future, SIGNA will present its activities to implement the ten principles in an annual progress report.
The UNGC was founded by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1999. The initiative doesn’t see itself as a regulation or a standard, but as an open platform. Concrete approaches to solutions are developed in the national networks. The board consists of high-profile multi-stakeholder members and is headed by acting UN Secretary-General António Guterres, based in New York. Over 15,000 companies and organisations from civil society and the political and scientific arena in more than 160 countries have already joined this global value alliance.
