Sustainability
Our approach to sustainability
A Group-Wide Commitment, embedded in each company
Our approach to sustainability is a natural extension of USTC’s core principles of business acumen, leadership, and decency. Anchored by a dedicated owner family with a firm ambition to advance this agenda across the Group, we leave day-to-day implementation to individual companies, allowing each one to address specific needs within its own industry.
Our ESG ambitions
Empowering our companies to lead responsibly
The USTC Group has identified five strategic priorities to advance responsible business practices and ESG integration.
In 2021/22, we defined our first Group ESG framework, aimed at creating positive impact on multiple fronts. As external expectations around ESG continue to evolve, and as our own efforts across the Group progress, we have gained a better understanding of how we as a holding company can support our operating companies and what role we should take. Based on learnings from the past three years, we launched a new ESG strategy in 2025.
As expectations from stakeholders continue to rise, ESG has become an operational imperative. We expect our companies to take strong local ownership of ESG matters, as they are best placed to understand their businesses and the communities they serve.
For this reason, our ESG approach is anchored in guiding principles rather than rigid directives. We believe USTC should enable and support our companies and not dictate prescriptive measures. This way, each business and its board can interpret and apply these principles in a way that aligns with its specific context, while remaining accountable and responsive in a rapidly changing world.
Our Group focus areas are as follows:
- ESG Compliance and sustainability reporting
- Preparing for climate transition
- Knowledge sharing
- Robust management of sustainability risks
- Anchoring sustainabilty with boards
Words from our CGO
Our role as owners is not only to support progress, but to actively enable it. That means ensuring governance structures are in place, strategic priorities are aligned, and the right foundations are built across the Group. Our ESG strategy supports this by empowering each company to develop and advance its own local strategies.
Mia Østergaard Rechnitzer, CGO and co-owner
Documentation
