Mid Sweden University

By incorporating sustainability on all levels in an organization, it signals to customers, stakeholders and others that are affected by the company’s actions that they are taking actions towards a more sustainable business on all levels. There are several benefits from doing so, the organization can identify areas that need improvement, and highlight areas that are ahead in their sustainability work.

In 2017 all companies within the European Union that have 500 employees or more have to report on sustainability according to the new EU directive (2014/95/EU). Today Nederman has a report covering their sustainability work, however, it does not meet the requirements of the new EU directive. This report is a part of the preparatory work that has to be completed before being able to form a sustainability report according to the new directive.

A benchmarking of six companies, of which three are competitors was done as well as a GAP analysis, weighing Nederman’s current key objectives with the new indicators.

The result shows that Nederman’s existing Key Performance Indicators are relevant but are not enough to meet criterias of the new EU-directive. Several new indicators are suggested regarding energy use, CO₂ emissions, water use, recycling and Transport. The GAP analysis showed a clear increase in quality in the reports reporting according to GRI and following UN Global Compact. By adapting to the suggested indicators as well as doing Integrated reporting, a higher level of sustainability reporting can be reached. There are strengths and weaknesses with all ways of measuring data and the potential of measuring errors or using not very useful unit is always present. What is most interesting is the development over time since that can be measured in percent and trends can be seen.