Our analysis (ESG) for 2021

In our group, responsibility for sustainability is entrenched with the executive management and board as described below.

• CEO – ultimate responsibility for our compliance with legislation and statutory regulations relating to ESG and our strategic platform
• Regional managers – responsible for regional development of clients, expertise and services
• CFO – responsible for collating and reporting
• COO – responsible for facilitating managerial development related to ESG subjects
• Quality manager/chief information security officer (CISO) – responsible for delivery quality, including security, administration and implementation of ISO certifications and recertifications
• HR manager – responsible for ethical guidelines and the activity and reporting obligation (ARP)
• Vice president communication – responsible for internal and external communication to our stakeholders in collaboration with the established communication network concerning ESG
• Board of directors – overall strategic responsibility.
   

Many institutions, businesses and individuals will be affected by our work – in different ways. That makes it important for us to identify these stakeholders and what each of them regards as important. Our analyses have yielded the following findings.

• Employees – our employees have a big engagement with and influence on the way we as individuals and a group can contribute to ESG.
• Potential new employees – an enterprise’s strategy, values, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and contribution to sustainability are important for many when choosing a new employer.
• Clients – the attention being paid to sustainability by our clients is rising. A number of them have established roles and organisational entities to follow up ESG in their own activities.
• Partners – our cloud partners, in particular, are working continuously to reduce the climate and environmental footprint of data storage by developing new services and tools.
• Suppliers – paying greater attention to sustainability throughout the value chain creates change and progress at our suppliers.
• Government ¬– new rules and statutory regulations are being introduced to ensure that Norway meets its commitments, along with new and clearer requirements for openness and transparency.
• Interest organisations: through digitalisation, the ICT sector can be an important contributor to allowing Norway and each enterprise to reach their sustainability goals. In this work, enterprises participate in collaborative efforts, joint initiatives, and expertise and experience transfer.

Other stakeholders include society at large, the higher education sector, individual local communities, owners and the financial sector. They will all make demands on – and provide opportunities for – us as a group.

Our ESG work is based on the same thoughts we have for our own business. That is revealed perhaps most clearly in our vision of “we lead the way and build tomorrow’s society”, which sets clear guidelines and requirements for creating sustainable solutions.

The fact is that a strategic platform for our group as a business can also be regarded to a great extent as a platform for our ESG work. Long-term customer relationships and profitability over time are important not only from a commercial perspective but also in the larger context. Sustainable solutions are profitable solutions over time.

Being the best workplace represents the final plank in our strategic platform. That again is directly transferrable to ESG – precisely as many of our values are. This is about sharing resources and knowledge, being open and trustworthy and – not least – working with the small and close-at-hand things as well as with the big picture. Our regional model and our philosophy of closeness to clients will be invaluable here.
 

As a consultancy, we can contribute digital expertise and an ability to deliver which allow our clients and other stakeholders to move the world in the right direction. With a broad range of services and clients in many sectors, we can influence all the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) both directly and indirectly. We will therefore pick none of these out specifically, but rather work with the goals wherever that is natural. That allows us to remain opportunity-oriented, which is important for our group.

The world and Norway face the need to make substantial changes in order to meet the international climate goals set by the Paris agreement. Norway has committed itself to these goals, and has undertaken to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 55 per cent in 2030 and 90-95 per cent in 2050. We will contribute to this ambition through our expertise and experience, together with clients, partners, interest organisations, educational institutions and other stakeholders.
 

All our work will accord with applicable government requirements at any given time. In addition, we relate to relevant international guidelines such as the ILO conventions and the 10 principles of the UN’s Global Compact. We also reference various standards, such as the global reporting initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SAASB), and draw on the guidelines from the task force on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD) when discussing climate-related recommendations.

When working on specific ESG measures, we will utilise a flexible form of execution with testing and trials. That fits well with our regional model and opportunities to take local measures. In this way, different approaches can be tried out quickly and provide scope for learning across the organisation, and our employees can make a specific contribution, learn from experience and share further. We can thereby also identify and prioritise those ESG measures which provide the best possible value for our employees, clients and society.

The EU taxonomy for sustainable activities will be introduced in Norway for fiscal 2022. Our business is not subject to reporting requirements pursuant to this taxonomy for the coming financial year. However, our clients set requirements for the way we as a supplier comply with and work on ESG in line with existing national and global specifications and guidelines.