Sage Group is a British multinational enterprise software company specialising in accounting, payroll, HR and business management solutions for small and medium-sized businesses worldwide. It serves customers in more than 20 countries.
Reason for engagement
Sage Group is one of the companies assessed and ranked annually in the CCLA Modern Slavery UK Benchmark. The company was ranked as tier 4 (‘failing to meet basic expectations’) in 2024.
What we did
Following the publication of the benchmark, we wrote to all tier 4 companies in our portfolio, including Sage Group. We have subsequently met representatives of the company on several occasions to discuss its approach to modern slavery.
Outcomes
Sage Group embraced the challenge and has invested in internal human rights expertise to review its approach and procedures. In its subsequent modern slavery statement, Sage Group disclosed that it had:
- Improved its human rights due diligence processes, including its risk assessment processes.
- Joined Slave-Free Alliance, a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to helping organisations combat modern slavery; this three-year membership will provide Sage with expert guidance on identifying both potential and actual risks of modern slavery across its operations and supply chain.
- Introduced a human rights saliency assessment to identify and prioritise the most salient human rights risks across its value chain.
- Started to develop a human rights risk register to integrate into its enterprise risk management system.
As a result of these efforts, Sage Group was one of the most improved companies in the CCLA Modern Slavery UK Benchmark between 2024 and 2025, showing an 11 percentage point increase in its score year on year. This places Sage Group in tier 3 of the benchmark (‘meeting basic expectations’). In our engagement, we will continue to seek to guide the company’s efforts to achieve the higher performance tiers.