Independence with Impact
2022 Annual Report Summary
Sage’s Independence with Impact Report provides an overview of some of the progress we have made to improve our social impact in line with our company values: Seek Progress, Take Responsibility, and Value People.
2022 was the first full year after our founder, Sara Miller McCune, passed control of the business to the independent Sage-SMM trust, giving away the company and ensuring our independence indefinitely. Independence for Sage was always in the plan, and Sara’s commitment to social justice is still central to who we are as an organization. In this report we look at some of the key areas where we are working to advance academic and social equity, sustainability, and freedom of expression in our day-to-day work and beyond.
Our Values
Seek Progress
We are committed to driving positive change, both within Sage and for society.
We are passionate about education and research and about amplifying the voices of scholars for greater impact.
We embrace agility, entrepreneurialism, and empowerment, continuously improving the way we work to add value for our customers.
Take Responsibility
We act with integrity and always hold ourselves accountable.
We champion new ideas and new ways of working and take ownership of developing our own knowledge and skills.
We protect the long-term independence and sustainability of our business so that we can continue to create value for future generations.
Value People
We respect and care about people's physical and mental well-being.
We actively pursue ideas and actions that enhance diversity and address social inequality.
We build constructive relationships by listening to and engaging with colleagues, partners, customers, and stakeholders across the globe.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Looking internally, in 2022 we created and staffed the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with leadership at the vice-presidential level. Through this office and specific programs in recruitment, internships and mentorship, very active employee-led resource groups, and our Culture Collective, we strive to make our workforce reflect our communities and customers.
We aim to bring the percentage of women in management (especially in the highest tiers), currently 61 percent, to match the company-wide 65 percent of employees who are female. We are also working to reach a goal of 30 percent of our US and UK workforce at all levels to be drawn from people of color. We are near that in the total workforce, but only at about 16 percent for leadership roles.
Externally, we focused on ensuring that our publishing properly and accurately represents diverse and underrepresented perspectives, scholars and viewpoints. This includes recent efforts to root out bias in our existing content and educating our staff, authors, and editors on best practices to ensure newly published material is free of bias. These efforts include new publishing programs, such as our Social Science for Social Justice and What Do We Know and What Should We Do About …? book series and new journals on inclusion, equity and neurodiversity, and partnerships with leading organizations in North America and the United Kingdom focused on ensuring diversity in higher education.
Enabling Impact
We aim to demonstrate the impact of our disciplines, especially in the social and behavioral sciences, and our products. And initiatives in library impact, critical thinking, innovative research methodology and sponsoring new tools and software for that research were key areas in 2022. We also signed onto the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, or DORA, and expanded the time frame for measuring citations to up to a decade after publication to better measure this impact. And we’re trying to make academic material accessible to a wider audience through free-to-read curated collections of research on pressing issues (like colonialism, the war in Ukraine or gun violence) and partnering with Wikipedia so its editors can draw on our peer-reviewed content in crafting Wikipedia articles.
Sustainability
All of the efforts, of course, take place in a planet experiencing dramatic climate change, and Sage responded with a renewed commitment to meeting Net Zero by 2040. We have reduced our global carbon emissions by more than half since 2019, with especially sharp reductions in our offices (down by 58 percent) and commuting, although the latter likely was helped by COVID restrictions. We also scrutinize our supply chain and extended our membership in the Book Chain Project and continue to use the Publishers’ Database for Responsible Environment Paper Sourcing.
This is the short version of Sage’s actions on impact, DEI, and sustainability in 2022. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and realize we have more to do. For greater detail, specific examples, case studies, and goals we’ve set but have yet to meet, we invite you to read the full report.
