CSR at Applus+

The Applus+ CSR policy establishes five strategic pillars:

• 
  Corporate gobernance and bussiness ethics
  Responsible governance at Applus+ is built through a clear set of regulations and a corporate-governance model that ensures compliance, independence and transparency. Our Code of Ethics is embedded across all our divisions to promote and ensure the observance of professional and honest business practices.
• 
  Innovation
  Applus+ promotes cross-fertilisation and open innovation across all its business units with a view to embedding CSR into everything we do internally, as well as what our clients do, promoting innovative thinking between employees.
• 
  Human Capital
  Applus+ fosters adequate working conditions and offers a fair, safe and competitive working environment providing professional-development opportunities to our employees and helping us attract and retain highly talented professionals. In addition, all aspects of diversity are encouraged across Applus+ teams, avoiding assumptions based on any kind of discrimination or stereotyping.

• 
  Market orientation
  The Applus+ business strategy is based on understanding what our clients and stakeholders require, foreseeing their needs and working to fulfil their expectations through high service standards and high-quality procedures across all our divisions.
• 
  Commitment to the Environment
  Applus+ is working actively to limit and, where possible, prevent potential climate and environmental impact by way of policies and management systems based on international standards and environmental legislation, with a particular focus on waste reduction and optimisation of the use of energy and resources.

REPORT

2016 saw the publication of our second Corporate Social Responsibility Report. This report outlines our approach to CSR as well as providing a comprehensive account of the work undertaken by the Applus+ Group to integrate sustainability into its services, operations and daily agenda, showing how our business is intimately linked to sustainability. It also serves to show the Group’s economic, social and environmental performance throughout the year and main achievements in terms of CSR.

The elaboration of this report followed the recommendations provided in the most recent G4 version of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Reporting Guidelines and is in accordance with its ‘core option’. The use of this standard ensures that the information contained in this document is reliable, complete and balanced, providing a clear overview on our company’s CSR priorities and the work that has been undertaken to achieve these.

The information and all performance indicators included in the report refer to the operations and activities conducted by Applus+ divisions in all regions where we operate and reflect the Group operations performed during the course of 2016.

The CSR report is published on an annual basis.For further information, see the full CSR report .

MATERIALITY

Corporate Social Responsibility comprises a variety of issues related to the workforce, the market, the environment, society and corporate governance. Applus+ puts special emphasis on a series of aspects that have been identified as ‘material’ for both Applus+ and its stakeholders.

The identification of these ‘material’ aspects was performed in accordance with the methodological recommendations outlined in the G4 version of the GRI’s Reporting Guidelines, using the following approach:

• The starting point for the identification was to review the continued validity of the 28 aspects selected last year and whether any new ones should be considered. This was performed through interviews with the Group Management Team and in-house professionals. A benchmarking process was also conducted that included our customers, competitors, the FTSE4Good Index and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, all of which provide information available to the public. As a result, we incorporated four new aspects, while downgrading another four, to produce a definitive list of 28 aspects.

• These initial findings provided the basis of a prioritisation exercise with a view to selecting those aspects to be considered in the CSR report. This prioritisation exercise involved a two-step approach take into account both the relevance given to each aspect by the company (internal relevance) and that given by external stakeholders (external relevance).

• Based on this combined analysis, material aspects were identified, scored and ranked based on the relevance they received from Applus+ and its stakeholders, then placed in a matrix that compared the results for both groups. This matrix was divided up according to the relative relevance given by each of the groups for each of the aspects ranked.

• In addition to the material aspects, two additional aspects were included in the CSR report as they were considered opportunities for Applus+ in the coming years: environment and innovation. The final selection of material aspects was presented to the Applus+ corporate and senior management team as well as to the CSR Committee for final review and approval.