Message from the Chairman of the Board of Management

Companies that are successful over the long term usually have one thing in common. They know what they stand for and ensure that their actions align with this. For 160 years, safety, trust and responsibility for people and the environment have been at the core of TÜV SÜD’s business model. Despite unrest and turbulence around the world, our interactions with customers suggest that for many of them there is only one way forward: to adopt sustainable business practices to provide as many people as possible with a better future.

With our Group strategy “POWER 2030”, we have highlighted the role of sustainability as one of the pillars of our corporate development. This is in line with our conviction and also our experience gained over many years and across many sectors that companies that operate in an environmentally and socially responsible manner are more resilient and competitive in the long term. They benefit from more stable customer relationships, more committed employees and greater resilience to change. In a nutshell: Sustainability and business success go hand-in-hand.

This is clearly reflected in the role that TÜV SÜD plays in the market. We help companies worldwide to implement measurable sustainability goals, make supply chains more transparent and set new standards – for example for renewable energy, climate-friendly mobility or safeguarding global value chains. At the same time, we also measure our own actions against the standards we promote to the outside world and we strive to ensure that our actions align with our aspirations as ultimately it is this attitude that establishes our credibility as a partner.

In 2025, we made real progress in this regard. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) validated our climate targets and confirmed that our decarbonization path is backed by state-of-the-art science and international climate targets. We also achieved platinum status in the EcoVadis sustainability rating, making us one of the best-rated companies in our sector. Results like these show us where we stand. They affirm our actions, but we also recognize that we still have a long way to go.

The path ahead is clear and there will be no turning back. We are continuing to work on systematically integrating sustainability into all key corporate decisions, whether relating to investments, new partnerships, or the way we do business in general. This process requires a high degree of rigor, and sometimes progress is slower than we would like. However, we have no doubt about the direction in which we are heading. Sustainability has been and remains the key to our success.

This report details what we achieved in 2025 and what we plan to do next. This year, the report not only complies with the requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), but also largely incorporates the new European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). We therefore report as transparently as possible, because trust is built on words and actions that can be verified.

I hope you enjoy reading this report.

Kind regards,

Patrick Vollmer
Chairman of the Board of Management