Our approach to sustainability

At Naspers, we view sustainability as a journey rather than a destination. We also understand why the concept of sustainability is fundamental to our long-term business survival, including:

  • Declining global resources amid a growing global population
  • Improved risk management – by understanding sustainability issues, we develop a better understanding of corporate risk
  • Shareholders and stakeholders expect companies to act responsibly as good corporate citizens
  • Entrenching sustainability issues protects a company’s reputation and nurtures trust.

Our goal is to integrate sustainability into our operations, as business’s place in society develops. While the projects featured on naspers.org demonstrate growing awareness across the group, they are by no means the end product of our efforts.

Today, companies need to answer to two aspects of their operations:

  • The quality of their management, both in terms of people and processes (the inner circle)
  • The nature and quantity of their broader impact on society (the outer circle).

Through our financial performance, we continue to demonstrate the first point. The primary focus of naspers.org is to demonstrate the second point.

Given the nature and scope of our business as a multinational group of media and e-commerce platforms, we focus our sustainability initiatives into distinct categories:

  • People
  • Education and skills development
  • Environment
  • Corporate governance

Naspers reports annually to stakeholders on performance via an integrated annual report that combines financial and non-financial performance for a fuller understanding of our group. This is available on our corporate website at www.naspers.com. Feedback can be communicated directly to gri@naspers.com.

These reports are prepared using the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI G3) and recommendations of the latest King Report on Corporate Governance in South Africa (known as King III). Each report includes the financial performance of the Naspers group and its subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates. The scope of reporting on non-financial performance covers the holding company, print media operations in South Africa (Media24), pay-television businesses in South Africa and Nigeria (MultiChoice), internet operations in Latin America (BuscaPé) and Central and Eastern Europe (Allegro). Together these account for over 80% of consolidated revenue. Our South African operations publish separate integrated annual reports on www.media24.com and www.multichoice.co.za.

Managing sustainability +

The Naspers board determines the business strategy and is ultimately responsible for overseeing our group’s performance. Management teams across our businesses provide leadership and implement strategies, guided by a group code of ethics and business conduct.

Our sustainable development framework flows from our values and an understanding of the key concerns of material stakeholders. These link to our risk management processes, which integrate financial and non-financial risk identification, management and monitoring for the most significant subsidiaries in our group.

The board is also responsible for the integrity of integrated reporting. The audit committee oversees sustainability issues in the integrated annual report and assists the board in its review by ensuring the information is reliable and that no conflicts or differences arise when compared to the financial results.

In line with our sustainable development policy, the group contributes to local communities in which we operate and strives to minimise the impact on the environment. Most initiatives are implemented in partnership with government, communities and other organisations.