Our environmental strategy

Each and every one of us in our company has a responsibility to contribute to environmental work through their small everyday actions. During the first half of 2020, all our offices with have Eco-Lighthouse certification. 

This means we are working systematically on day-to-day environmental measures. We meet requirements and implement measures aimed at more environment-friendly operation and a good working environment.

The Eco-Lighthouse is Norway’s most widely used certification for enterprises which want to document their environmental commitment and display CSR. Its value lies in helping us to measure our progress in important areas such as procurement, energy, transport and waste. We set targets for each of our offices, and see progress year by year.

Each and everyone of us has an everyday responsibility to sort waste, save energy, use the procurement guidelines when purchasing products, and travel as far as possible in an environment-friendly manner.

Our environmental strategy is a driving force for our commitment in this area. We work systematically to reduce our own environmental footprint, influence employees and suppliers in the same direction, and facilitate environmental awareness among clients.

A stakeholder analysis we conducted in 2019 provided insights into which areas they consider important. We mapped our environmental impact and identified areas unique to us as a business where we can continue making progress in each region to reduce our environmental footprint. 

Procurement

We will minimise our consumption of goods and services, and set environmental standards. Our goal is that 80 per cent of our suppliers will be environmentally certified.

Relevant environmental requirements will be set for procurement of both goods and services by prioritising suppliers who can document that they are environmentally certified (ISO 14001 or the Eco-Lighthouse) and/or deal with environmentally certified products (Nordic Ecolabel, Debio’s organic label, Fairtrade Norway, EU Ecolabel, Good Environmental Choice label, Oeko-Tex Standard 100 and so forth).

Suppliers without certification or certified products will be urged to acquire these. In addition to setting environmental requirements for procurement, we will work actively to reduce the size of purchases and to have reuse/recycling in mind at all times.

We will minimise consumption of products and services, including paper, communication materials and office equipment. Consumption of printer paper will be reduced, and we also want to cut the environmental burden related to packaging by encouraging suppliers to change this if we find it excessive.

Energy

Our goal is to reduce energy consumption and the consequences of the energy we do use. We will cut our energy use measured in kilowatts per square metre by at least two per cent per annum. This refers to heating, operating and using the buildings we occupy.

All our offices are leased, and we are working to encourage our landlords to implement good energy-saving measures. These include low-energy lighting and motion sensors in areas which do not need to be continuously lit, such as meeting rooms and toilets.

We encourage employees to turn off computers and monitors which do not need to be on outside working hours. 

Energy consumption is monitored by monthly meter readings. In the event of large variations, we will seek to identify the cause, take action if possible, and work to prevent similar fluctuations later.

Waste

We will reduce our total volume of waste and have good arrangements for sorting it into paper/cardboard, plastic, food and residual categories. The proportion of residual waste is to be cut by 40 per cent from the 2014 level.

Reductions will be achieved through detailed assessments of requirements for purchasing, reusing and recycling. In addition to the categories mentioned above, handling will include electrical waste.

The goal is to minimise the total quantity of paper/cardboard and residual waste, with employees encouraged to make the greatest possible use of paperless communication and documentation.

Transport

We will reduce business travel by car and aircraft. Routines have been established in our daily work to make the greatest possible use of digital collaboration solutions (screen sharing, web conferencing and so forth). We are continuing to invest in equipment which promotes this form of collaboration.

We are simplifying opportunities for employees to make an good environmental choice. Several of our regions have acquired their own electric cars, which personnel are encouraged to use when visiting clients rather than taking a taxi.

Special environmental requirements will be set when entering into new leases for company cars, while the trend for fuel consumption per kilometre driven with such vehicles is to be followed up.

Employees are also urged to use means of transport with a lower environmental impact in getting to and from work. When assessing new office premises, their proximity to public transport will therefore be given emphasis.

We will as far as possible prevent unnecessary travel and choose the means of transport with the lowest possible environmental impact, such as electric or hybrid cars or bicycles.

Our environmental impact

While still continuing to secure Eco-Lighthouse certification for all our offices in Norway, we are also acquiring an even greater understanding of our environmental impact.

We are now working to establish a more holistic, meaningful and integrated approach to sustainability, and have defined that we want to stretch ourselves as far as possible here.

We will define during 2020 what this means for us in practice. 

Identifying our environmental impact from energy consumption, carbon emissions, pollution and waste throughout our value chain – while developing a materiality analysis – will let us set higher, measurable targets and document our commitment. That will allow us to increase our positive environmental footprint and reduce our negative impact.