Sustainability
Report 2020
Meny
In order to be considered a sustainable business partner, it is our firm belief that we must do business in a responsible way. We do this by working with our three business responsibility topics that we have developed to structure our approach.
Our Code of Conduct is our guiding document to describe how we should act – both as a business and as individual employees. The code has shaped our three Business Responsibility Topics – Working conditions, Fair and ethical business, and Diversity and inclusion. These topics are presented in more detail below. Click here to read our Code of Conduct
Our Code of Conduct is aligned with our three pillars:
Rationality
Sustainability
Reliability
The code also includes two additional important topics:
Responsibility
Respect
Management approach
We seek to promote good working conditions for everyone our solutions and operations impact. This includes our own employees, our customers and waste collection workers.
What we do
Envac’s automated waste collection systems promote Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) for the employees and third-party waste collection workers of our customers. Traditional waste collection work is associated with risks for injury and ill health. It is estimated that 3.6% of the workers in the UK waste industry have a non-fatal injury every year, and that 34% of these injuries are related to handling, lifting or carrying. As our systems eliminate the need for the manual handling of waste, these risks are significantly decreased.
Envac’s ground rules for its own employees are to work safely and protect themselves, their co-workers, the community and the environment.
In response, we continuously work to promote a safe workplace and a sound safety culture for all our employees. To support this and to promote continuous improvements, we have a common global system in place. We report OHS incidents, follow them up with root cause analyses, and take action to prevent them from happening again.
In 2020, our Global Executive Board (GEB) decided that all OHS incidents shall be presented in each GEB meeting. This has helped further drive a reporting culture globally throughout our business and has supported the regions with their OHS work and the further development of their safety culture.
Local initiatives
In our Swedish company, we have continued to develop a safety culture. One action we started with in 2020 was to formulate five questions for our service technicians to raise awareness and mitigate risks before they start a work order.
We are also working with a systematic approach to improve OHS. A digital system to follow up OHS regulations has been implemented, and we perform regular safety inspections and risk assessments. Our safety committee, which includes the CEO, Human Resources, Head of operations, an OHS specialist and Union workers’ representatives, meets 3-4 times a year.
“In 2020, we started to talk on a daily basis about five key questions as a tool for us to put safety first when we perform a job at a customer site. This tool has given us as service technicians the opportunity to mitigate the risks in our work by empowering us to take the extra time to mitigate risk”
We will continue the follow up procedures at a global level and to develop global OHS KPIs, such as Lost Time Injury Rate. Our global OHS policy shall be updated, and a self-assessment tool developed for each region to rate their compliance in OHS matters. We are also aiming to certify at least our largest company in each region to an OHS management system such as ISO 45001.
Our targets related to working conditions
2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
Develop the GEB OHS follow up procedure | Completed | |||
Develop global OHS KPIs | Completed | |||
Update the global OHS Policy | Completed | |||
Develop OHS self-assessment tools for regions | Completed | |||
One company per region certified to an OHS management system | Completed |
Management approach
Operating a fair and ethical business is crucial to Envac’s overall reputation and success. Business partners, including suppliers and customers, are crucial to our ability run a fair and ethical business.
What we do
How we shall act throughout our business is described in our global Code of Conduct. All our new employees must sign our Code of Conduct when they start working for Envac and all our employees read and sign the Code of Conduct every third year. In 2020, we had one incident in Region North Europe where a supplier was not compliant with our Code of Conduct. We immediately ended our business partnership with them.
Our Code of Conduct additionally communicates our whistleblowing procedures and how our employees shall act if they suspect any violations to our Code of Conduct. It also states that the whistleblower will not be subject to any retaliation or negative impact and that they can choose to be anonymous.
“In 2020, we completed a process for all employees to read and confirm our global Code of Conduct. This process is repeated every third year. By doing this we are making all employees aware of how Envac shall do business in a fair and ethical way”
Malin Lennen
Visit Coordinator, Envac AB
Local initiatives
For the 2020 Code of Conduct confirmation procedure, Region North Europe developed a digital signing system, which was mandatory for all employees. The system ensured a more efficient signing process with better control of which employees had signed the code. All employees could also submit queries and comments about the Code of Conduct through the system, which were forwarded to the management team.
We believe we have a robust and clear Code of Conduct, however we need to strengthen our messaging regarding the code to both employees and suppliers. We plan to create a Code of Conduct training programme for all employees and to develop a Supplier Code of Conduct for all our critical suppliers and subcontractors. This will include an update of our Global Procurement Policy.
In addition, we believe we can improve our whistleblowing procedures. We also plan to create a whistleblowing channel for our external stakeholders in the long term.
We do currently not consider social aspects of sustainability in our procurement decisions. However, we intended to integrate them into our next Procurement Policy update and our Supplier Code of Conduct.
Our targets related to fair & ethical business
2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
Create a Code of Conduct training program | Develop | 50% trained | 100% trained | |
Improve our whistleblowing communication | Completed | |||
Develop a supplier and subcontractor Code of Conduct (including the update of our Global Procurement Policy) | Develop | 50% of supplier signed | 100% of supplier signed | |
Develop an external whistleblowing function | Completed |
Management approach
We have always tried to promote equality and inclusion among all our employees around the world, however the diversity and inclusion topic is a relatively new priority area for our sustainability work. Going forward, we need to improve and we are committed to further strengthen our performance in this area.
We already have robust policies in place in the area of diversity and inclusion. What we need to become better at is communicating the good work we do and sharing good practice between our entities around the world.
What we do
Envac’s culture welcomes everyone, regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age or physical ability, or any other aspect of diversity.
We do not tolerate any employee harassment. This is highlighted in our Code of Conduct, which is our global guiding document on how Envac expects all employees to act.
Local initiatives
In 2020, we sharpened our diversity and inclusion policies within our Swedish company. This involved strengthening our messaging and approach regarding equal rights and equal opportunities.
“In 2020, we released a new local policy for equal rights and opportunities for the Swedish company within Region North Europe. This involved collaboration between HR as a company representative and workers’ union representatives”
Svetlana Afonina
HR Business Partner, Envac Scandinavia AB
We have robust policies in place and are working well in the area of diversity and inclusion. What we need to become better at is communicating the good work we do and sharing good practice between our entities around the world. We will also create a global diversity and inclusion policy.
In our recruitment process, we will investigate how we can improve our advertising of new positions in order to attract a more diverse range of applicants. We will also look into how we can anonymise the applicant to avoid unconscious bias in the recruitment process.
As a complement to the Code of Conduct training programme we will develop, we plan to create a dedicated diversity and inclusion training for managers and employees.
Our target related to diversity and inclusion
2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
Create a global diversity and inclusion policy | Completed | |||
Investigate if we can improve how we advertise new positions | Investigate and implement | |||
Anonymise the recruitment process | Completed | |||
Provide managers and employees with diversity and inclusion training | 50% trained | 100% trained |
Envac AB
Fleminggatan 7, 3tr
SE-112 26 Stockholm, Sweden
Tel: +46 8 785 00 10
Corporate web site:
www.envacgroup.com