SGS Announces Support of Global Climate Expedition TOPtoTOP

Geneva - 30 May 2008 - SGS, the world's leading inspection, testing, certification and verification company, today announced its support of TOPtoTOP, a global climate expedition aiming to summit the highest peak on each continent and travelling between them using only human power and the forces of nature.

 

TOPtoTOP's expedition seeks to raise awareness of climate change and to show that great goals and progress can be achieved in balance with nature. SGS joins other organisations including the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Victorinox, the famous Swiss knife manufacturer in their backing of this initiative.

 

"We are delighted to be backing TOPtoTOP on their global expedition. This is a serious commitment by our company to help focus attention on one of the most important issues facing society and business today. Our experience in helping customers all over the world address their sustainability in the context of environmental certification and compliance, such as our Global Climate Change Programme, mirrors perfectly our commitment to TOPtoTOP," said Chris Kirk, chief executive officer of SGS.

 

The TOPtoTOP global climate expedition began in 2002 and was followed shortly by the successful ascent of Mt. Blanc in France, the highest peak in Europe.  Since that time, TOPtoTOP has travelled from Europe to North Africa then South America and is currently in Australia after crossing the South Pacific.

 

"SGS is our ideal partner! We are very excited about our partnership with SGS and I know that their expertise in a wide variety of areas, especially in climate change, will prove useful in our expedition. We look forward to working with the team from SGS," said Dario Schwörer of TOPtoTOP.

 

Many SGS services address the challenges and issues that TOPtoTOP raise in their global climate expedition. The SGS Global Climate Change Programme offers a wide variety of services for the carbon market that address mandatory and voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas emissions. SGS Wind Energy Services support all aspects of wind farm development and certification, protecting investment and ensuring optimal delivery of renewable sources of energy.

With governmental introduction of sustainability standards for biofuels, SGS works with customers to meet regulatory requirements and to ensure biofuels have a positive effect on the environment. SGS is the global leader in management system certification  including environmental certification standards, social accountability standards and in the verification of corporate social responsibility report statements.

"For our customers around the world, there are strategic and competitive drivers to voluntarily report and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These include voluntary early action to reduce emissions for companies that may face mandatory regulation in the future; competitive advantages through the provision of emission neutral products and services and pressure from governments and customers who want to know the extent of emissions embedded in both products and the supply chain of the products they source. Independent verification of any GHG commitment by a third party such as SGS is necessary to retain credibility when talking to regulators, customers and consumers," said Robert Dornau, director of SGS's Global Climate Change Programme.

 

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TOPtoTOP is a global climate expedition travelling the seven seas and climbing each continent's highest peak using only human and nature's power to raise awareness about climate change. For more information, visit www.toptotop.org

 

SGS is the world's leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. SGS is recognised as the global benchmark for quality and integrity. With more than 50,000 employees, SGS operates a network of over 1,000 offices and laboratories around the world. To learn more, visit www.sgs.com

 

Francoise Rein SGS SA, 1 place des Alpes CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland T: +41 22 739 9637 M: +41 79 238 8369 E: Francoise.Rein@sgs.com

Dario Schwörer P: +61 4 23 45 02 55 Sat.P: 00872 7625 68 933 E: dario@toptotop.org Current position of expedition on: www.toptotop.org

 

 

TOPtoTOP is lead by Dario Schwörer, a climatologist and international ski and mountain guide and his wife Sabine, a nurse. They decided to embark on this voyage when they saw the impact climate change was having in the Alps. Through their voyage and interaction with school children, they hope to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change, encourage climate protection and demonstrate that one can enjoy nature through sport but at the same time give something back to nature. Most recently back from scaling Mt Kosciusko in Australia, their next challenge is to climb Mt Everest in Asia, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Denali in North America and again tackle Mt Vinson in Antarctica before returning to Europe to close the expedition by climbing Mt. Blanc once more.

 

To date, TOPtoTOP has travelled 46,000 kilometres by boat, climbed 200,000 vertical meters, and cycled 8,000 kilometres. At the close of 2007 they had visited over 20,000 school students, and cleaned up over 15 tonnes of waste working with local initiatives.

 

SGS's support of TOPtoTOP mirrors its commitment to its customers to help them operate in a more sustainable manner by improving quality and productivity, reducing risk, verifying compliance and increasing speed to market.

 

"SGS is both a Swiss and a global organisation like TOPtoTOP. SGS sees global climate change as the challenge for our generation like we do. The SGS Climate Change Programme is recognised as the leader in verification of GHG emissions and it is planned to do some testing under extreme conditions on board the expedition sailboat. TOPtoTOP under the patronage of the United Nations Environment Program and Switzerland is very proud that SGS will join Victorinox as a major sponsor," said Dario Schwörer of TOPtoTOP.