Intertek, a leading Total Quality Assurance provider to industries worldwide, shared some insightful statistics on corporate sustainability at the Middle East Sustainability Forum in Dubai. The statistics which were uncovered in a study carried out with 550 business leaders in the UK, showed that three out of every four companies take risks without assessing their entire supply chains’ sustainability performance, and two out of three admitted they face significant pressure to improve their sustainability performance.

Speaking at the Forum, Samir Ahmed, Director of Business Assurance at Intertek Gulf & Pakistan Region, added “Organisations are facing increasing challenges from the growing complexities of meeting their sustainability goals across their supply chains, from higher consumer expectations of corporate responsibility to the ever increasing regulatory landscape. Consumers, investors, and regulators are now asking companies to meaningfully demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.”

In today’s world, companies are expected to independently verify and certify their end-to-end commitment to sustainability, in order to validate their sustainability stewardship.

Samir Ahmed explained: “Management system standards play an important role not only in this verification and certification process but also in establishing a culture of proactive analysis of risks across the organisation’s operations. There are various sustainability-related management system standards that organisations can implement, and they range from Environment, Energy, Procurement, Sustainability Management for Events and Hotels, Knowledge Management, Business Continuity as well as Anti-bribery. These are just some of the sustainability solutions that are core to Intertek’s global business, helping our clients ensure quality, safety and sustainability across their entire value chain.”

Intertek’s integrated Assurance, Testing, Inspection and Certification solutions help organisations understand, achieve and validate their existing and emerging sustainability goals throughout their operational and corporate footprint- for their products, assets, facilities, systems, processes and environment. In addition to the more than 130 operational sustainability certifications, the company offers 10 corporate sustainability certifications designed to verify specific business issues that can help companies achieve Total Sustainability Assurance across their entire footprint.