Environmental, Social and Governance

The ambition to enhance the lives of older people is at the heart of everything we do.

Purposeful product offerings and service

Purposeful products for people over 50 are central to Saga’s success. We create positive impacts for customers, through the curation of purposeful product offerings, including high-quality media, bespoke travel opportunities and trusted financial services expertise.

Our products continue to receive industry recognition through awards and accreditations.

• Saga is a Which? Recommended provider for ocean cruises and city breaks.
• Saga was voted best cruise line, best luxury tour operator and best print advertiser at the British Travel Awards.
• Our Insurance division is a Defaqto five-star rated provider in various categories, including motor and home. 

We are proud that 74% of customers rate Saga as ‘extremely easy’ to deal with.

This year, we announced an exciting step in Insurance, having agreed a 20-year partnership for motor and home insurance with wholly owned UK subsidiaries of Ageas SA/NV. Our joint scale and unrivalled knowledge of the over 50s insurance market represents a strong platform from which we can serve even more customers with relevant, innovative and intuitive products.

Customer accessibility and satisfaction

At Saga, we believe customer accessibility and satisfaction is integral to our success. We recognise the potential for us, our suppliers and partners to positively impact our customers, through seamless journeys, high levels of service and protection, where needed, for vulnerable customers. 

We continue to accelerate digital journeys for our customers, making interactions easier, while ensuring our product journeys allow customers to speak to a person at all points. 

As we provide opportunities for older people, we must ensure that we protect our environment.

Oceans and biodiversity

Loss of our natural habitats, and their biodiversity, presents a threat to both business and life as we know it. We recognise that maintaining both terrestrial and ocean habitat health is key in enabling future generations to thrive. 

We mitigate the impact of our operations through extensive programmes of hull cleaning for our Cruise fleet, reduced cruising speeds near protected areas and strict compliance with all regulations around the disposal of waste at sea. 

Our ongoing partnership with ORCA, who play a key role in helping to monitor marine mammal populations and habitats, also reduces our impact to cetaceans through enhanced monitoring on board our cruises. This year, we launched our partnership with Kent Wildlife Trust, helping to further their work on restoring and protecting our wildlife and spaces for future generations.

Carbon emissions

For our latest emissions reporting, please refer to our 2025 Annual Report and Accounts. Our reported greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption are verified annually to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14064-3 standard. You can read our 2025 verification report here. 

Climate change resilience

We, and our stakeholders, recognise the importance of future-proofing our business against the threat of climate change. During the year, we ensured that changes to our business model, relating to our response to sustainability-related risks, were incorporated into our business planning processes, which formed the basis of certain key judgements linked to financial performance and the integration of climate risk into our viability modelling. For further information on Saga’s resilience, including details of our climate-related risks and opportunities, please refer to our Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures Report within the 2025 Annual Report and Accounts.

CDP

Since 2015, Saga has responded to the CDP climate change questionnaire. In 2024, we scored a ‘C’ and you can find our 2024 CDP response here.

ISO 14001 accreditation

CustomerKNECT, our in-house mailing and printing business, located in Seaham, has been ISO 14001 accredited since 2015. The accreditation covers the provision of the direct mailing services, including printing, packing, data handling and arrangement of delivery.

 

An engaged, inclusive and diverse culture encourages our colleagues to thrive.

Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEI&B)

Saga strives to create a culture of belonging that unites different backgrounds, beliefs, abilities and experiences, in an environment where everyone feels valued and able to work together. 

In 2024, we launched our colleague diversity review, seeking to better understand the diversity characteristics of our colleague base. During 2025, we will continue our survey approach, improving our data quality and, ultimately, enabling us to set robust targets to improve colleague diversity metrics in the future, where needed. 

During the year, we refreshed our DEI&B Policy, with the aim of raising awareness of fairness and equality in our working lives and outlining our responsibility to create an inclusive environment that respects the dignity and diversity of all people. 

To review our Board, executive management and all-colleague diversity statistics, please refer to page 46 of our 2025 Annual Report and Accounts here. To read more about our gender pay statistics, please refer to our 2024 Gender Pay Report here.

Supporting our communities

We know that supporting our community is important and we do so through donations to community charities. We also offer colleagues paid volunteering days to share their skills and time with the communities in which they live and work.

During 2024, we were, once again, the headline sponsor for the Folkestone Coastal 10k, celebrating our Folkestone roots and all the amazing athletes and attendees that support the event. All proceeds from the race go to local charitable causes, including youth projects, mental health charities and rotary clubs.

Health, safety and wellbeing

Our Group Health, Safety and Wellbeing Policy and Policy Statement outline how we comply with health and safety legislation, regulations, standards and good practice to protect our colleagues, customers and stakeholders. Our established Occupational Health and Safety Management System explains how we deliver the obligations set out in the policy and provides our core principles of health and safety management. We seek to empower our colleagues to be proactive and uphold these specific requirements to ensure continual improvement in performance. 

In 2024, we ran our Active April fitness campaign, with colleagues collectively walking, running, cycling, swimming and wheeling an incredible 80,000 miles in support of charitable causes.

Looking after our colleagues

Prioritising colleague wellbeing is integral to our shared success.

During the year, we became an accredited Real Living Wage employer, reflecting our commitment to ensuring that all our colleagues receive a fair wage that meets the cost of living. By doing so, we are taking a stand for fair pay and supporting the wellbeing and financial security of our colleagues.

We also continue to support our long-running scheme, providing educational bursaries for the children and siblings of our Filipino Cruise crew, with 610 children of crew members involved in the scheme during the year.

We seek to conduct our business operations with a strong emphasis on ethics and transparency and our policies are aligned with human rights principles, including those related to non-discrimination; health and safety; wellbeing; and environmental factors. In addition, we are committed to ensuring that our supply chains are free from modern slavery and human trafficking. Our Modern Slavery Statement outlines our approach and efforts to address this issue.

Our Labour Standards and Human Rights Policy describes our principles-based approach to ensuring fair labour standards for our workforce. These include a commitment to delivering decisions and actions that uphold the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining for all our colleagues.

How we work is as important as what we do and why we do it.

ESG Governance

Good governance is essential to achieving our sustainability goals. ESG governance is embedded into each of our boards and committees. Our ESG Steering Committee is tasked with supporting the delivery of the ESG strategy, targets and driving ESG accountability across the business units and group functions.

Fines and penalties

Our Cruise vessels have a strong safety and environmental performance record. No environmental fines or penalties have been imposed and we are not aware of any ongoing investigations or proceedings, which could result in the issue of any such penalty. 

Anti-corruption

The Group values its reputation for financial probity and integrity and recognises that it has a primary duty to protect its customers from all financial crime, including bribery and corruption. The Group takes a zero-tolerance approach to incidents involving bribery and corruption and supports the organisational policy, which lays out clear guidance for the appropriate assessment of any risk of bribery and corruption across all business functions. All colleagues are trained annually to ensure their understanding of the risks and appropriate action if they encounter any activity of concern.

Risk management

Our risk management framework was designed in conjunction with external risk expertise to bring together best practice risk management standards and draw upon a number of risk standards and professional body guidance, including the Institute of Risk Management, the Committee of Sponsoring Organisations, ISO 31000:2018 and Basel risk classification guidelines. These standards, frameworks and guidelines support specific design considerations of our risk framework, whilst ensuring the final result is fit for Saga and reflective of its risk maturity.  

Saga expects its colleagues, managers and leaders to carry out their business and perform their duties to the highest ethical standards and in compliance with all relevant laws. This is reflected in our Personal Standards and Ethics Policy. These standards of behaviour apply to Saga’s dealings with all stakeholders including customers, regulators, colleagues, suppliers and investors. The Board reviews the Group Personal Standards and Ethics Policy, and compliance with it, on a regular basis and will take prompt action should it discover any behaviour that isn't aligned to this. Where appropriate, adherence to standards is assessed through the risk management framework and assurance work undertaken across the three lines of defence. Any areas of non-conformity are reported through the established governance framework to Executive Committees and the Board as appropriate. Policies are reviewed periodically to ensure that they remain effective.  

In addition to reporting labour-related incidents to the Board, the business works closely with all its regulators and, in the event a non-conformity or reportable incident is identified, this would be disclosed to the relevant body. Where the business has a responsibility to submit calendar-based disclosure reporting claims or incidents of non-compliance, these are submitted in accordance with the schedule set by the regulator.

Under Saga’s Modern Slavery Statement, each business area is required to risk assess all new suppliers before operating with them. It is also a policy requirement to carry out follow-up risk assessments with existing suppliers every three years to assess the potential of any residing risk. 

Due diligence is conducted on our suppliers to help determine our future relationship with that supplier. It is policy for all new agreements with suppliers to be in writing and contractually oblige the supplier to comply with the Modern Slavery Act.

It is the responsibility of each business area to attest continued compliance with Saga’s Modern Slavery Policy annually. Any areas of non-compliance are reported through the governance framework to the appropriate executive committee and Board, where appropriate.   

ESG and climate risk feature in the Group's principal risks and uncertainties included within our Annual Report and Accounts and are tracked by the Operating and plc Boards to ensure the risks are being managed effectively. ESG and climate form part of our risk framework.

Whistleblowing (Speak Up)

The Company’s robust Whistleblowing and Open-Door Policy is known within Saga as the Speak Up Policy. The Audit Committee are responsible for reviewing the adequacy and security of the Company’s arrangements for its colleagues and contractors to raise concerns, in confidence, about possible wrongdoing in financial reporting or other matters. The Committee shall ensure that these arrangements allow proportionate and independent investigation of such matters and appropriate follow up action.

External auditors

Our current external auditors were appointed in 2016, following a competitive tender process. We completed the rotation of our audit partner in 2022. 

In accordance with the Financial Reporting Council’s audit committees and external audit: minimum standard, and the Company’s Independent Auditor Policy, the Company proposes to complete a competitive re-tender process in 2026 in respect of the 2027/28 audit.

Supplier Code of Conduct

Central to the success of our operations are the suppliers we work with. Corporate integrity, responsible sourcing and the safety and wellbeing of workers in the countries where we do business are of paramount importance to Saga. These core principles are reflected in our Supplier Code of Conduct - Expected Behaviours, which establishes the behaviours Saga expects from any entity that supplies products or services to the Saga Group. Suppliers must notify us immediately upon becoming aware of any actual or suspected non-compliance by it, or its own, supply chain.