SUSTAINABILITY IN PRISA

PRISA’s commitment to responsible management of human capital has these main objectives:

• To foster the professional growth and personal development of each employee by providing a work environment that promotes equal opportunities and the exclusion of all forms of discrimination. To base promotion on merit, ability and the performance of professional duties.
• To champion and implement the principle of equality between men and women, ensuring equal opportunities in income and professional development at all levels of the workplace.
• To promote and improve women’s access to positions of responsibility, thereby reducing inequalities and imbalances that may arise in the company.
• To establish measures to promote a better work-life balance for workers.

To achieve these objectives, all Human Resources policies deployed by the Group are aimed at promoting the development of independent and committed professionals and the training of leaders in our teams, who will thereby be better equipped to inform, educate and entertain people and act in ways that are accountable to society.

The geographical, cultural and functional diversity of the workforce at PRISA and the challenges facing the sector coupled with the need for outside partners to develop our operations, require effective Management Policies as well as certain guiding principles and values that are outlined in the PRISA Code of Ethics, which was revised in 2015. [Read +]

Digital technology has definitively placed people at the center of each and every company’s strategy. It brings us closer to users and allows us to learn more about their habits, thereby enabling us to offer personalized products that will improve their user experience.

The responsible management of our users must first start with focusing on and preparing our professional teams to face the challenge of digital transformation, a transformation that requires us to develop new skills, new procedures, new products and new ways of working. To this end, over the past four years, PRISA has been energetically pursuing an ambitious transformation plan to provide us with the organizational and corporate culture necessary to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by technology and the digital world for our business group. This plan includes training and development programs that will enable our professionals to adapt to this new reality.

Never before in history, have media organizations had this opportunity to listen to and dialogue directly with their readers and users. Digital technology has exponentially multiplied the audiences of traditional media. In the case of PRISA, the Spanish and Portuguese languages have allowed us to cross borders by removing all barriers to communication. Users increasingly want to participate in the construction of collective opinion, express themselves and feel part of the content. [Read +]

PRISA’s Corporate Communications and Marketing Department has adopted a proactive approach focused on the continuous improvement of the Group’s reputation. The key strategies are based on Integral Communication, ongoing research and analysis, positioning, segmentation, and communications 3.0, in order to properly manage brand identity, internal communications, external relations, and social responsibility.

All too aware of the importance of coordination for a group of companies operating in 22 countries and with a broad portfolio of products and services, it is essential that we are equipped with an appropriate communications network. [Read +]

The chief goal of PRISA’s Procurement Policy is to build up a solid base of suppliers and collaborators, thereby enabling all our companies to acquire goods and services under the strict criteria of efficiency, cost, coverage and technical and productive capacity. Moreover, PRISA also evaluates the supplier’s integrity and its respect for basic human rights, and the environment.

The Corporate Procurement Department coordinates all relations between Group companies and their suppliers, guided by a number of principles that are detailed below:

• PRISA’s relations with suppliers are governed by principles of objectivity, transparency, non-exclusivity and equal opportunities.
• Any information supplied will be identical for all suppliers, ensuring that no single supplier enjoys any initial advantage, thus fostering legitimate competition.
• Potential suppliers will not be invited to participate in the adjudication process.
• The results of the adjudication and certification process, including a summary of the criteria employed, will be communicated to the supplier in writing. Initiatives for constant improvement are in place, which boost quality to the benefit of both parties. [Read +]

PRISA is committed in all its business operations to the environment, with a twofold approach of reducing both the costs and the impact that such operations may have on the world around us. The Group’s Environmental Security Policy includes a series of basic principles with the aim of providing safe products and services that respect the environment throughout their entire life cycle. These principles state that:

• PRISA will comply with all applicable legal requirements, and will, whenever possible, make every effort to anticipate them.
• The group will actively strive to reduce and prevent pollution and waste, and to conserve energy in all its operations.
• The group will require its suppliers to conduct their operations in an environmentally responsible manner.
• The group will ensure the safety of industrial operations to avoid any negative impact on the environment. [Read +]

In 2015, PRISA was honored with the Latin American Award for Corporate Responsibility, given by the Social Ecumenical Forum. The Group achieved the highest scores in all four areas evaluated by the committee assessing the Group’s performance: economic, institutional, environmental and social.

The jury praised the work of PRISA as a role model for socially responsible companies that strive to meet the expectations of a range of stakeholders: customers and users, employees, shareholders, suppliers and society in general. “There is complete consistency between the overall strategy and the sustainability of the organization, as well as the actual measures that have been implemented, showing a continued commitment over time to CSR”, said the jury. Noteworthy is the fact that PRISA voluntarily produced its 2015 report in accordance with the new Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 guidelines a full year before these rules came into force. These will now be compulsory from 2016.

PRISA, across all its divisions (Santillana, audiovisual and news) is committed to and active in the defense of freedom of expression and conscience and human rights. Social responsibility is considered not merely as a complement or ancillary, but an inherent part of the Group.

PRISA’s media have long championed campaigns in favor of human rights and development as promoted by bodies and NGOs such as UNICEF, WWF, Intermón Oxfam, Fundación de Ayuda contra la Drogadicción, Ayuda en Acción, Red Cross, Manos Unidas, Médicos sin Fronteras, Save the Children and the UNHCR. Support is offered through habitual reporting and specific sponsorship or promotion deals.

All such initiatives are shared via PRISA’s Social Responsibility Observatory, a body that meets once a month, in which all business units are represented, and whose responsibility is to develop and manage a global, comprehensive and cross-corporate social responsibility strategy and to channel, support and coordinate the strategy of each of the companies and business units. [Read +]