1. Who we are

ESS (Environmental and Social Sustainability) is a group of companies providing ESG and HSEC advisory services, with its head office at Rue YF 488 x Rue YF 498, Virage, Dakar, Senegal, and registered entities in Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon and Kazakhstan. The data controller for personal data collected through this website is ES Sustainability Ltd. Questions about this notice go to ess [at] essustainability.com.

2. What we collect

Information you give us. Your name, company, email address, telephone number and the content of your message when you use the enquiry, feedback or whistleblowing forms; your CV and application details when you apply for a role.

Information collected automatically. IP address, browser type, pages visited and time of visit, gathered by our hosting provider’s access logs and by privacy-preserving analytics.

We do not collect special category data through this website and ask that you do not submit it in free-text fields.

3. Why we use it, and our lawful basis

To respond to your enquiry or feedback — legitimate interests, namely handling communications addressed to us.

To assess job applications — steps taken at your request prior to entering a contract.

To investigate reports made under our whistleblowing channel — legal obligation and legitimate interests in preventing and detecting wrongdoing.

To keep the website secure and to measure how it is used — legitimate interests.

4. Cookies and analytics

The rebuilt website sets no advertising or tracking cookies, and no third-party social or marketing scripts run on it. A single functional preference — your chosen language — is stored in your browser and is never sent anywhere else.

Usage statistics are collected in aggregate only and cannot be traced back to an individual. Because no non-essential cookies are set, no consent banner is required.

5. Who we share it with

Service providers acting on our instructions: our hosting provider, our email provider and, for job applications, our recruitment system.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it for advertising purposes.

Where a report or enquiry concerns a client project, we may need to share it with that client. Reports made through the whistleblowing channel are handled under the safeguards in section 8.

6. International transfers

ESS operates across Africa, Central Asia, Europe and Latin America, so your data may be accessed by ESS staff outside your country. Transfers are made under appropriate safeguards, including standard contractual clauses where required.

7. How long we keep it

Enquiries and general feedback: 5 years from the last contact. Job applications: 5 years, unless you ask us to delete them sooner. Grievance and whistleblowing records: 5 years from the date the case is closed. Server logs: 90 days.

8. Whistleblowing reports

Reports submitted through the feedback form may be made anonymously — name, company, email and telephone are all optional fields. If you do identify yourself, your identity is restricted to those handling the report and is not disclosed to the subject of the report without your consent, except where we are legally required to do so. See the Whistleblowing page.

9. Your rights

You may ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, object to or restrict our use of it, and ask for it in a portable form. Write to ess [at] essustainability.com. We respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority, which supervises data protection in Gibraltar.

10. Changes to this notice

We publish the date of the current version at the foot of this page and keep previous versions on request. Material changes are announced on the homepage for 30 days.