Sustainability Report Advania Sweden 2018 Table of contents
1 Introduction 37 Sustainable supply chain
1 The year in brief 38 Supply chain requirements and control 2 Advania in brief 4 A word from Tomas Wanselius 5 Focus on sustainability work 40 A final word from the 6 Management of our sustainability work Sustainability Manager
7 Sustainable Advania 41 About this sustainability report 8 Attractive employer 14 Equality and diversity 42 Process for materiality assessment 18 Business ethics and transparency 43 Risk analysis 19 Climate-smart operations 44 UN Global Goals 23 Long-term profitability 46 Measurement of greenhouse gas emissions according to the GHG protocol 47 GRI Index 24 Sustainable offerings
25 Integrity and security 28 Sustainable IT and sustainable digitalisation 35 Customer satisfaction
About this sustainability report
This report concerns Advania Sverige AB’s activities for the oper- renamed Advania Sweden AB, and the name Advania AB is now the ating period of 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018. It is Advania name of the Nordic parent company that owns Advania Sweden Sverige AB’s third report, and it has been prepared in accordance AB. In this report, Advania Sweden is referred to as “Advania”, and with GRI Standards: Core level. Our last report was published in the corporate group is referred to as the “Advania Group”. June 2018, and we publish a report each year. 2016 is the base year for the report. Insofar as there is reliable data, The report is also Advania Sverige AB’s sustainability report, in key figures from 2015 are also reported. Where this is the case, it is compliance with Chapter 6 of the Annual Accounts Act. specifically mentioned. Data on our personnel and organisation is In 2017, Advania AB purchased the Swedish company Caperio mainly collected via our finance and payroll system, and is regarded Holding AB, which also included the subsidiaries Caperio AB and as the average number of employees during the year. Environmen- Caperio Finance AB (now Advania Finance AB). On 1 November 2018, tal data is calculated on the basis of documentation from the GHG the merger of Advania Sverige AB and Caperio AB was concluded; Protocol. The consolidation method for climate emissions is oper- all Caperio AB employees were hired at Advania Sverige AB, and ational monitoring; information on conversion factors and source Caperio’s business ID number was relinquished. The ambition was can be found on p. 46. to include Caperio’s operations in the key figures of this report. For each key figure, it is clearly stated whether Caperio’s business and The report has not been externally reviewed. If you have any ques- employees have been factored in, and if so, at what point in the year tions or comments about the report, you are welcome to contact their inclusion starts. The decision to exclude indicator 404-3 start- Helena Nordin, Sustainability Manager for Advania Sverige AB, at ing with this report has been made because of the absence of rele- [email protected]. More information about the company vant data. A re-structuring of the Advania Group’s companies was can be found at www.advania.se. undertaken in 2017, as a result of which the Swedish company was
| Advania Sweden Sustainability Report 2018 Introduction
The year in brief
378
Average number of permanent employees
2017: 301 | 2016: 283
SEK 2,191 Mill. 31 % 5.1 % Top ranking in 3 of 4
categories in the survey Radar Supplier quality 2018
Net turnover Solvency Profit margin Customer satisfaction
2017: SEK 832 mill. | 2016: SEK 2017: 29% | 2016: 32 % 2017: 8.2% | 2016: 7.5% 2017: 2 of 4 | 2016: 2 of 4 734 mill.
Certified according to ISO 14001:2015 4.4 of 5 +90% 97% and ISO9001:2015
4,4 5
4,36 Employee satisfac- Increased number of Proportion of employees Management system tion women in consulting, who have been 4,42 sales, and managerial trained in Advania’s code roles of conduct
What has happened during the year?
In June 2018, the Advania Group gained two new minority Advania has continued to exceed its objectives of reducing owners: VIA Equity, a northern European private equity climate emissions, increasing the proportion of women in company, and PFA, Denmark's largest commercial pension consulting, sales and managerial positions in line with its company. Representatives from VIA and PFA took up positions objectives, and maintaining a high degree of employee and on Advania AB’s board of directors, with their purchase of 30% customer satisfaction. We have taken further strides towards of the shares. In the autumn, a new strategy for growth was providing, and measuring, our climate-smart IT services, and developed, and this will be implemented in all of the Advania have strengthened our position in sustainable digitisation Group's companies, starting from 2019. through Advania School Partners [Advania Skolpartner].
The merger of Caperio AB and Advania was concluded on 1 Our quality and environmental management has undergone November 2018, and the businesses are now fully integrated, al- a renovation, as sections of Advania have been certified though the companies have been working together in practice according to ISO9001:2015 and ISO14001:2015. Over the course since the autumn of 2017. Advania's organisation and turnover of the year, Advania has also developed the link between its has continued to grow according to plan, both organically and sustainability work and the UN’s Global Goals, by identifying as a result of the integration. relevant objectives at the target level.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 1 Introduction
Advania in brief
Where we operate
The Advania Group is a Nordic group of IT companies, with 1,200 em- Today, the Advania Group’s head offices are located in Stockholm, where ployees and operations in Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and, since Advania Sweden has its head offices as well. In Sweden, Advania oper- February 2019, in Finland as well. ates at 13 offices in 12 locations around the country.
Advania's roots go back to 1939, when an Icelandic entrepreneur found- ed a workshop for office equipment in Reykjavik. In the following dec- ades, three separate branches were developed in three Nordic countries: Iceland, Sweden and Norway. In 2012, these divisions were integrated with one another to form Advania.
Iceland
Sundsvall
Finland Norway Uppsala Västerås Stockholm Örebro Norrköping Linköping
Gothenburg
Halmstad Sweden Karlshamn Kristianstad Malmö Denmark
2 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Introduction
Advania’s mission
Advania offers a wide range of IT services, platforms, cloud solutions, and support in the form of operation and administration to thousands 42 % of companies and organisations, in both the private and the public sec- Percentage of 2018 tor. Our mission is to help our customers to simplify their IT infrastruc- ture by improving its functionality and, at the same time, reducing the turnover in the public sector associated costs.
In 2018, the public sector represented 42% of our total turnover, and 2017: 27% | 2016: 35% private companies represented 58%.
Business areas Today, our offerings on the market are divided into three business units, with a total of ten different business areas.
Managed services Workplace - Flexible sourcing and cloud services. - IT-packaged solutions and trainings for - Solutions for consolidating, monitoring schools. and maintaining external cloud services. - Solutions for monitoring and maintaining - Solutions and products for network struc- IT Infrastructure licences. ture and infrastructure. - Consulting services and solutions for IT - Solutions for workplaces. Self-service, help - Solutions for managing all types of inter- infrastructure and integration projects. desk, and application management. actions with customers - on all channels. - Specialists from Microsoft. Highest certifi- - Solutions for digitalising, automating, cation and competence level. streamlining, measuring and documenting - Application development and adminis- processes. tration.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 3 Introduction
A word from Tomas Wanselius
As one of the Nordic countries’ leading businesses in IT and digitalisation, it is natural for us to take responsibility for contributing to sustainable development. I am convinced that our sustainability work strengthens our competitiveness, business development and profitability. In other words, our sustainability work plays a key role in our business, both today and in the future.
By providing services and tools for sustainable IT and digitalisation, Advania hopes to act as a catalyst for the development of an environmen- tally friendly and socially sustainable society.
Tomas Wanselius, CEO, Advania Sweden
Sweden's economy depends strongly on trade with its surrounding velopment. Of course, we also take responsibility for our own business neighbours, where new and large markets are continually being inte- and the impact we have on the environment. Today, we have renewable grated at a rapid pace. Thanks to swift technological developments, this electricity in 100% of our data centres and 85% of our offices. We have integration facilitates worldwide trade and production networks. At also continued to exceed our own objectives for climate emissions per the same time, we are facing challenges such as extreme poverty and employee, achieving a 36% reduction compared with 2015. climate change, which we must tackle together. As one of the large op- erators in the Nordic market, we have a responsibility to work on these Two major sustainability challenges in our sector include the manufac- worldwide challenges. Thus, at the end of 2018, a decision was made to turing of products, and what to do after the products have been con- sign up to the 10 principles of the UN’s Global Compact; the signing took sumed and become “waste”. Our "influence capital" as a retailer lies, first place at the beginning of 2019. The UN’s Global Goals are also something and foremost, in holding dialogues with our suppliers, and in helping we actively use as a guideline in order to be part of the change – in this our customers to set requirements and develop sustainable processes report you can read about how we have developed our work towards that make it easy for customers to do the right thing. Collaboration these goals by linking relevant Global targets to our business. within the sector is also a key component in being truly able to work to- wards a sustainable world. As a part of this, last year we participated in The past year has been a very eventful one. An important area of focus the Fossil-free Sweden initiative’s roadmap for digitisation consultants, was the integration of Caperio AB, which was acquired in summer which brought together a large part of the consulting sector. 2017, into the business by creating a shared company culture that took advantage of both our competences and the business services we In the coming year, our ambition is to continue to integrate our sustain- offer. As part of Advania's growth journey, we have invested in a new ability work into the business, with a further focus on sustainable IT recruitment strategy with a focus on equality. We see this as a crucial and digitalisation. This meshes well with our ambition to be a long term aspect of our efforts to achieve our growth objectives, and to maintain partner for our customers. We will also continue our proactive work on and strengthen our competence, customer orientation, and innovative integrity and information security, and will further strengthen our work capacities. Equality between the sexes remains one of the biggest inter- on equality through our training of operations managers. nal challenges in our business, and it is an area that we have historically had too little focus on. It is therefore particularly encouraging that our I am thankful for the engagement of all Advania’s employees over 2018 employee survey shows a very high proportion of satisfied workers, the year, which has made this possible, and I look forward to another and that we have succeeded in increasing the number of women in exciting year! areas such as consultancy, sales and management.
By providing services and tools for sustainable IT and digitalisation, Advania hopes to act as a catalyst for the development of an envi- ronmentally friendly and socially sustainable society. It is especially rewarding to see how we are contributing to a circular economy by helping our customers to optimise the life cycle of IT hardware. I am also personally proud of Advania School Partners, an excellent example of how sustainable digitalisation can contribute to positive societal de-
4 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Introduction
Focus on sustainability work
Advania's sustainability work focuses on the economic, social and environmental areas that are considered to be the most critical for the business. Our sustainabiliy work is grouped into three areas of focus: “Sustainable Advania”, “Sustainable offerings”, and “Sustainable supply chain”.
1 2 3 SUSTAINABLE SUSTAINABLE SUSTAINABLE ADVANIA OFFERINGS SUPPLY CHAIN
Attractive employer Integrity and security Monitoring of suppliers Equality and diversity Sustainable IT and Sustainable Business ethics and transparency digitalisation Climate-smart operations Customer satisfaction Long-term profitability
Within each area, there are the specific sustainability challenges that In 2018, we placed extra focus on highlighting matters of equality have been assessed as being the most crucial to work on1. These chal- and diversity, integrity and security, climate-effective operations, and lenges are identified through a materiality assessment, consisting of dia- customer satisfaction. These areas have been assessed as being of logues with our most important stakeholders, and an analysis of how particular importance for strengthening our sustainability efforts and these areas affect our business and our surroundings. The most recent Advania's competitiveness. materiality assessment was carried out in 2016-2017 and is described in further detail on p. 42.
1 The areas of equality and diversity, and also attractiveness as an employer, are relevant within our organisation; the other areas are relevant both inside and outside our organi- sation.
How we are working towards the UN’s Global Goals
In the Advania Group’s sustainability policy, five of the UN’s Global Goals have been identified as shared objectives to work towards and report on: Goals 5, 8, 12, 13 and 17. In addition to the shared group objectives, Advania Sweden considers educa- tion to be an important area of focus, which has resulted in our identification of Goal 4 as a prioritised Global Goal. You can read more about how we are working towards the Global Goals and related targets on p. 44.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 5 Introduction
Governance of our sustainability work
The Advania Group signed up to the UN’s Global Compact at the beginning of 2019. Within the Advania Group, there is now an established working group with repre- sentatives from Norway, Sweden and Iceland. The goal for the coming years is to pub- lish a joint sustainability report for the whole corporate group that shows how the Advania Group, collectively, complies with the 10 principles of the Global Compact. We at Advania also aim to strengthen our contribution to the UN’s Global Goals, and to provide transparent reporting of our work to contribute towards the Global Goals.
Responsibilities and authority Advania Academy
In order to ensure the integration of sustainability into our operations, Advania Academy, our new platform for e-learning, allows us to effi- it is important to clearly define our responsibilities and the scope of our ciently implement our steering documents. We use this platform to authority. Advania's CEO has overall responsibility for sustainability. train all our employees in areas such as our internal code and The Sustainability Manager is responsible for strategies and projects much more. Since 2018, this training in our code has been a required concerning our sustainability work, external reporting of this work, part of the introduction process for all new employees. and Advania's participation in external networks and initiatives. The Sustainability Manager also conducts work on climate issues, and Management system coordinates this work with the HR Manager and office managers. The As part of the merger of Advania and Caperio AB, the certificates company's Quality Manager is responsible for strategies and projects regarding the system for quality and environmental management regarding quality, and has overall responsibility for the shared platform (ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015) were transferred to Advania Sweden and model for the management system. Advania's HR Manager has AB in November 2018. This means that parts of the company are now ultimate responsibility for the company's work on employment law and covered by the certification, and our hope is to increase the certificates' the working environment, and is in charge of equality and diversity-re- coverage to include Advania Sweden's entire business by 2020. With the lated matters. The Security Manager is responsible for the manage- management system, we apply a risk-based working method, helping us ment system for security and integrity matters. The company’s CFO is operate on a principle of precaution. In parallel with this, preparations responsible for our proactive anti-corruption work. Advania’s sustain- are underway for integrating the management system with our efforts able IT products and digital solutions are managed by the respective regarding the working environment and information security. business-area managers, with support from the Sustainability Officer. For our partners, there are designated partner officers, responsible for ensuring that the partners comply with Advania's supplier code. Each Membership and networks year, the Sustainability Officer conducts a joint evaluation and monitor- In addition to membership of the UN's Global Compact, Advania also ing of all partners. has memberships in the Network for Sustainable Business [Nätverket för ett hållbart Näringsliv], NMC, and the Sustainability Council for IT The code and Telecom industries.
Advania's internal code of conduct ("the code"), which applies to all Read more about how our Sustainability Manager conducts work in this employees, clarifies our position on the Global Compact’s 10 princi- area on p. 40. ples regarding human rights, employment law, the environment, and anti-corruption. The code describes the rights and obligations that each employee has as regards compliance with the code and the accompany- ing policies and procedures.
6 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 FOCUS AREA I
Sustainable Advania
The work of a long-term sustainable company includes efforts to achieve both financial goals, and goals pertaining to the environ- ment and social responsibility
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 7 Sustainable Advania
Attractive employer
Advania's employees are the business's most valuable asset. Our competence and innovations are key elements in working towards digital transformation for a sustainable economy. Large parts of the digitisation of society are still ahead of us, and it is estimated that by 2022, a staggering 70,000 people will be needed to fill the competence gap1. This is why it will continue to be a challenge to attract and retain qualified employees with IT skills. Advania therefore believes it is especially im- portant to make competence a priority issue.
1 ref. IT and Telecom Companies
Satisfied employees Sights set on growth
The ability to offer good terms of employment, assignments that devel- In parallel with the integration, we have set our sights on growth, and op staff and a healthy and inclusive company culture brings obvious last year we employed a record number of new employees. With a new competitive advantages. We therefore offer a basic platform through strategy and recruitment platform, we have succeeded well in reaching the IT and Telecom industries collective agreement, which, for example, out and making it apparent why Advania is a good employer. gives our employees financial security in the event of sick leave and parental leave, in addition to statutory requirements. A key component of our recruitment strategy has been the develop- 100% of the company's employees are covered by a collective agreement. ment of our equality and diversity-related efforts. We see these areas as Advania is proud of being able to offer development and satisfying crucial for attracting and keeping competent employees, both now and assignments with our customers, as well as a workplace with a focus on in the future, and maintaining our competitiveness. Read more about health, engagement and inclusion, where employees develop along with our work in the areas of equality and diversity on p. 14. the company. The 16% staff turnover for the year is at the same level as the previous Integration of Caperio with Advania year. In view of current trends, where there is often a lack of the skills needed in a fast-growing market, a staff turnover rate of 16% is lower An important area of focus last year was on the integration of Caperio than the industry average, and is manageable for us as an employer. with Advania, and the creation of a shared, inclusive company culture where we take advantage of synergies between both the different busi- ness services we provide, and our competences within the company. The tactic has been to ensure that our valuable employees remain with us, by not making any major organisational changes, but instead maintain- ing the work groups and business areas that are already functioning well. We have also retained both our offices in Stockholm, in order to make it easier for our employees to continue working with us, and to prevent an increase in commuting time.
Martin Brate, Service Delivery Manager & Project Manager at Advania
Though I am relatively new at Advania, I already feel like “one of the gang”. I have had the opportunity to work on many exciting customer deliveries, and my role as Delivery Manager allows me to take significant responsibility for what we deliver to our customers, which is something I appreciate. I feel safe working in an organi- sation that provides constant back-up with its competence in all aspects of our deliveries. I'm having a fantastic experience here! CASE
8 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
EMPLOYEES* 378 Average number of permanent employees** 2017: 301 | 2016: 283
Number of new employees Staff turnover
55 323 114 16 % (61 )
2017: 58 | 2016: 57 2017: 17% | 2016: 8 %
83 % 17 % 85 % 15 % (95 ) (19 ) (52 ) (9 ) Out of which men make up Out of which women make up Out of which men make up Out of which women make up
2017: 90% | 2016: 88% 2017: 10% | 2016: 12 % 2017: 94% | 2016: 85 % 2017: 6% | 2016: 15%
25 % 62 % 13% 65 % (29) (71) (8) (40) Of the total turnover, Of the total people under 30 turnover, people Age <30 Age 30–50 make up aged 30-50 make up
2017: 40% | 2016: 33% 2017: 48% | 2016: 60% 2017: 10% | 2016: 7% 2017: 52% | 2016: 86%
13 % 22 % (14) (13) Age > 50 Of the total turnover, people over 50 make up
2017: 12% | 2016: 7% 2017: 38% | 2016: 7%
*Caperio's employees are included since 1/11/2018 **The average number of employees for the year is determined by taking the number of employees on 1 January, adding it to the number of employees on 31 December and dividing the sum by 2.
Having a good distribution of employees with different employment periods is one of many important signs that we are managing both to keep highly experienced employees, and to fill openings with new and fresh competence. This distribution has continued to be good over the course of the year. 43% 11% 19 % 12 % 15 % Number of employees Number of employees Number of employees Number of employees Number of employees who have been with who have been with who have been with who have been with who have been with us for < 3 years us for 3–5 years us for 5–10 years us for 10–15 years us for > 15 years
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 9 Sustainable Advania
What do our employees think?
One monitoring method that we use to ensure that we have a healthy, attractive workplace with satisfied employees is our employee survey, which is carried out by Gallup. The employees fill out an anonymous survey, answering questions about their job satisfaction and productiv- ity. The answers are then given scores on a scale of 1–5, in the areas of “Commitment” and “Engagement”.
The good results achieved in both areas are a sign of the successful integration of the two companies, and of Advania's continued success at being an attractive employer. The results are well above the average in Gallup's database, and are a new record for Advania.
CASE Employee survey 2016 2017*** 2018 Commitment* 4.36 Was not conducted 4.42 Engagement** 4.26 Was not conducted 4.35 Ulrica Broo, Consulting Manager at Advania * “Commitment” is an index of how satisfied employees are with their jobs, and how well the company's orientation and activities reinforce the importance of Ulrica Broo is one of the consulting managers their work and their pride in being able to work at Advania. at Advania, in the Data Centre business area.
**“Engagement” is an index of employees’ engagement, energy and passion, As a consulting manager, I see my employees develop and of how strong a connection they feel to the company. A strong level of every day. For me, it’s important to support and coach each engagement promotes innovation and moves the company forward. individual in the team, so that they can develop in their pro- fessional roles. Our ability, as a team, to deliver added value to ***No staff survey was carried out in 2017. Instead, in connection with the the customer is an important driving force for me. I am proud integration of Caperio with Advania, we evaluated a new tool for staff surveys and happy to be part of Advania in their journey forward. with a smaller group of employees, but we then chose to go back to Gallup's method for 2018.
GOAL Employee satisfaction, 2019
Maintain the Commit- ment and Engagement levels at above 4.20 GOAL Personnel turnover, 2019
Reduce to a level of around 10%
10 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
A healthy workplace
With the pressure and demand for digital skills that exists through- out the sector, there is a risk of periodic spikes in the work load, and consequent stress among certain groups of employees. With many ded- icated employees who are ardently devoted to their work, we have an especially great responsibility as an employer to detect such unhealthy situations in time.
Advania places great importance on both offering a good and secure working environment, and working to prevent all types of poor health – a priority that we have also adopted in our Work Environment Policy. We are engaged in a systematic effort regarding the work environment, wherein we use a risk-based method to detect and prevent work-related accidents and illnesses. Responsibility for the working environment is borne by the HR Manager, and some aspects of implementation are delegated to all organisational managers of the company. As a support, CASE all managers receive training in detecting, and proactively responding to, work-related risks. Cycling challenge Focus on stress management In the spring of 2018 we conducted a cycling challenge across the In recent years, focus has been placed on increasing competence in the entire company. In total, around 100 employees took part, and social and organisational work environment, and in the area of stress over the course of two months they recorded all the distances management. We have an agreement with an external partner for they cycled using our customised cycling app. They were able to occupational health care, which all employees can use to receive help choose between the exercise group, where all cycling was count- in dealing with stress-related and other health problems. Close contact ed, or the environment group, where only cycling that replaced with employees that are on sick leave, in order to plan together the best another means of transportation was counted. Together, we path back to work, is also a key factor that we have found delivers good cycled a total of 35,000 km, and the savings for those who com- results. peted in the environment class were around 1 tonne of carbon dioxide from the replacement of car, train and bus transport. A Ergonomics and wellness good example of an initiative where health and the environment are integrated! Most employees’ work involves sedentary work at a computer, which carries risks of poor ergonomics and strain injuries. In 2018, we conduct- ed an overview of the physical work environment at all our offices. We have ensured that all employees have access to height-adjustable work desks, and adjustable computer screens, and we have also made evalua- tions of lighting, noise and ventilation.
In our preventive efforts to ensure a healthy workplace, we encourage people to exercise and be physically active, both on their own initiative at their workplace, and through shared initiatives. We have a wellness allowance for all employees, to subsidise exercise activities. Some offices offer regular yoga sessions during lunchtime, and at others employees exercise together several times a week. GOAL
Since 2017 we have offered all employees the option of renting a bicycle Sick leave 2019 from our partner Personalcyklar. This has proven to be a simple, fuss- free way to have access to bicycles. It even includes an annual service. In No work-related absences all, the company has rented about 100 bicycles to employees.
Sick leave
In 2018, the total sick leave was at the same level as in the preceding year, and it is still at a low level compared with both the IT sector as a whole and most other industries in Sweden. Long-term sickness absence has been considerably lower compared with the previous year, which is another good sign that our efforts to address stress-related sickness are paying off.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 11 Sustainable Advania
SICK LEAVE*
2.2 % 33% Total Percentage of the total sick sick leave leave over 60 days
2017: 2.2% 2017: 41.4% 2016: 3.0 % 2016: 46.5 %
2.8 % 2.1 % 44.7% 30 % For women For men For women For men
2017: 1.7% 2017: 2.3% 2017: 24.6% 2017: 42.3% 2016: 4.7% 2016: 2.8% 2016: 34.2% 2016: 49.5%
1.9% 2.1 % 0 % 16.1 % Age <30 Age 30–50 Age <30 Age 30–50
2017: 1% 2017: 2.7% 2017: 0% 2017: 35.9% 2016: 3.5% 2016: 2.9% 2016: 3.5% 2016: 29.4%
2.8 % 16.9 % Age > 50 Age > 50
2017: 1.7% 2017: 5.5% 2016: 3.1% 2016: 13.6%
0 3 Accidents Cases of work-related sick leave (absence for longer than 5 working 2017: 1 days) 2016: 1 2017: 1
*Caperio's employees are included in the statistics from 1/11/2018
12 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
Skills development
The basis of the strategy for the training and development of employees is our model for discussions with employees. These are to be carried out at least twice a year; a discussion on salary, in which an appraisal of the employee is carried out, and a discus- sion on development, focusing on planning for the coming year. Additionally, everyone has the right to an individual plan for their continued development with the company.
Advania Academy Advania Academy enables us to develop our own training courses in a better and more effective way. The training courses we have developed In 2018 a shared LMS platform was set up for company training, so far concern the areas that are obligatory for everyone to be trained allowing our existing training programme Advania Academy to be in as new employees, such as our management system, our code of brought into the digital world. This e-learning platform provides better conduct, and the GDPR. Going forward, we see great potential for opportunities to continually inform and train all employees in a way producing more focused training courses in, for example, sustainable that is both efficient and allows for monitoring. The pilot project for the IT and digitisation for consultants and sales staff. Measuring skills platform was an obligatory training course in Advania's code of conduct development is difficult, because a large part of it takes place in projects, for employees, which was attended by all permanent and contract whether externally with a customer, or internally. We currently measure employees. In total, over 97% of the organisation underwent training, all the time that our consultants invest in instructor-led training that has of whom obtained a passing score on the follow-up questions regard- been ordered but is not part of a customer project. This provides us ing the training's content. New employees' introduction to Advania with some sense of how much time consultants devote to keeping their now takes significantly less time, as we have made all training courses skills up to date and adapting them to new requirements on the market. accessible, along with a great deal of other useful information. They are Other employees have just as much right to personal development, available digitally in Advania Academy, through a special program for but do not currently need to report their working hours in the same on-boarding. detailed way. Their training is monitored on an individual basis by their immediate supervisors, but they are not compiled at an overall level.
TRAINING*
6 days Average number of training days for all consultants
2017: 5 days 2016: 6 days
9 days 6 days 5days 6days 7days Female Male Consultants Consultants Consultants consultants consultants age <30 age 30–50 age >50
2017: 5 days 2017: 5 days 2017: 6 days 2017: 5 days 2017: 6 days 2016: 4 days 2016: 6 days 2016: 7 days 2016: 6 days 2016: 5 days
*Caperio's employees are included in the statistics starting 1/11/2018.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 13 Sustainable Advania
Equality and diversity
Advania is convinced that equality and diversity increase our competitiveness and profitability. Advania's success in recruiting and retaining more women, and in attracting foreign-born and other under-represented groups, is a key factor in our effort to achieve our growth objectives, and also to maintain and strengthen our competence, customer-orientation and capacity for innovation.
Focus on gender balance Some of the activities accomplished last year:
In recent years we have chosen to make the balance between the Reviewed the selection of images and language in our recruitment sexes in our company the main area of focus. We are lagging behind in advertisements, in order to attract a greater diversity of candidates. this area, compared with the sector as a whole, but at the same time we perceive great opportunities to increase the proportion of female Increased the referral bonus for employees who bring female employees. candidates to our attention.
In 2016 Advania decided to set a goal of sharply increasing the propor- Offered all recruitment managers professional support regarding tion of women in roles where women were under-represented in the equality in the recruitment process. company. We want to double the number of women in consulting, sales and managerial roles by 2020. Since 2016 the number of women has Started a partnership with the recruitment company Women increased from 21 to 38, and this increase relates to all three professional Ahead in order to attract more female candidates. roles. It is particularly encouraging that the number of female manag- ers has sharply increased – the first step towards women being able to Mandatory training in Advania’s code of conduct for employers, gradually assume their place in the company’s management. in which our zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination is described. A factor in this increase is the large number of improvements we have made in our recruitment process during the year. As a result of our An internal female network was established. The aim of the hiring a talent acquisition manager, who has developed a recruitment network is to create a platform where women can get to know and platform, a significantly higher percentage of women have applied for support one another. the positions we have advertised than applied in the past. Of the appli- cations that were received via the recruitment portal in 2018, 33% were from female applicants. Diversity plan
Another key component in the promotion of this area is training. In Advania’s work in this area is based on our updated diversity plan. The 2019 we plan to train those in management positions and all opera- plan describes both how we ensure that we are actively counteracting tions managers with personnel responsibilities, in gender balance and discrimination, and how we work to improve the balance between the inclusion. The purpose of the training is to increase the understanding, sexes and diversity in the workplace. Our plan is based on the current competence and confidence of our operations managers in this area, legislation on discrimination, and we work systematically to detect and and thereby develop their ability to create inclusive and effective teams. prevent risks of discrimination in accordance with all of the princi- In all, around forty managers will receive training, lasting a total of two ples of the Discrimination Act. In 2018 there were no reported cases of days, from an outside partner with long-term experience in manage- discrimination, via internal reporting or the external whistleblowing ment development and equality. channel.
In 2019 we plan to train those in management positions and all operations managers with personnel responsibilities, in balance between the sexes and inclusion.
ObjectiveObjective ful llment fulfillment -– Gender equality equality Objective ful llment – Gender equality -number-proportion of femaleof female consultants, consultants, salespersons, salespersons, managers managers -proportion of female consultants, salespersons, managers GOAL Equality 2020 Goal
To double the number of women in consulting, sales and managerial roles com- pared with the numbers from 2016.
14 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
EMPLOYEES*
378 Average number of permanent employees**
Of which the number of women is Of which the number of men is 55 323 (15%) (85%) 2017: 12% of 301 2017: 88% of 301 2016: 12 % of 283 2016: 88% of 283 35 Number of employees hired
Of which the number of women is Of which the number of men is 9 16 (26%) (74%) 2017: 15% of 33 2017: 85% of 33 2016: 17% of 23 2016: 83% of 23 376 Total full-time
Of which the number of women is Of which the number of men is 53 323 (14%) (86%)
2017: 10% of 299 2017: 90% of 299 2016: 11% of 281 2016: 89% of 281 2 Total part-time
Of which the number of women is Of which the number of men is 1 1 (50 %) (50 %)
2017: 50% of 2 2017: 50% of 2 2016: 50% of 2 2016: 50% of 2
* Caperio’s employees are included in the statistics from 1/11/2018 **The average number of employees for the year is determined by taking the number of employees on 1 January, adding it to the number of employees on 31 December and dividing the sum by 2.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 15 Sustainable Advania
EQUALITY* 55 Total number of women
2017: 36 | 2016: 32 17 8 20 10 0 Number of women Number of women Number of women Number of women Number of women Administration Sales Consulting Managers corporate management
2017: 13 | 2016: 12 2017: 5 | 2016: 4 2017: 13 | 2016: 13 2017: 5 | 2016: 3 2017: 0 | 2016: 1
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY GROUP BOARD BOARD ADVANIA SWEDEN 0% 0 % Number of women Number of women
2017: 33% | 2016: 33% 2017: 0% | 2016: 0%
40 % 60 % 25 % 75 % Age 30–50 Age > 50 Age 30–50 Age > 50
2017 83% | 2016: 100% 2017: 17% | 2016: 0% 2017: 50% | 2016: 33% 2017: 50% | 2016: 67%
*Caperio's employees are included in the statistics starting 1/11/2018.
Advania performs a salary analysis each year in order to ensure that we do not discriminate on the basis of gender when it comes to pay and the survey has shown once more that employees at Advania are paid equally. The differences in salary that do exist can all be attributed to differences in experience and length of employment.
SALARY SURVEY*,**
85% 83 % 89 % 97 %
Average salary for Average salary for female Average salary for female Average salary for female women compared sales staff compared consultants compared administrators compared with the average with the average salary with the average salary with the average salary salary for men for male sales staff for male consultants for male administrators
2017: 84% | 2016: 85%*** 2017: 82%*** | 2016: 82% 2017: 94%*** | 2016: 94% 2017: 103%*** | 2016: 112%
*Underlying data is too limited at managerial level to be reported anonymously **Caperio employees are included in the statistics for 2018 *** Adjusted definition of measurement figures compared with reports in 2016 and 2017 due to errors in the text
16 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
INTERVIEW Petra Laewen of Women Ahead and Michaela Berg of Advania. Photo: Anna Rut Fridholm Why increased equality means better profitability for IT companies More women are needed in the IT sector. This is something that Michaela Berg at Advania is absolutely convinced of. She plays a key role within HR and is driving forward the work to increase the number of women at Advania.
Research shows that boards with a good gender balance enjoy in- women, both for the company as a whole and for the employees creased profitability. A report published by the EU Commission in 2012 themselves. But even though things are developing in the right direc- states that: “having more women in top posts can contribute towards tion, change takes time. Michaela Berg believes that there are two gen- a more productive and innovative working environment and greater eral reasons for this within the sector. Firstly, the idea is typically to business success in general”. put successful people – who are often men – into similar roles, which From autumn 2018, Advania has been working in partnership with the results in recruiters looking for people with classically masculine qual- recruitment firm Women Ahead. They are specialised in the recruit- ities. At the same time, recruitment processes are often subject to time ment of women, primarily within the IT, technology and telecommu- pressures and to low rates of female applicants, which means there is nications sectors. not enough time to actively seek out suitable female candidates.
In essence, the problem comes down to the fact that too few women A generally masculine-oriented approach to recruitment also means are attracted to IT degrees and that career opportunities in the sector that job advertisements are typically formulated in a way that means are better for men than they are for women, according to the IT and few women are attracted to them. If the advertisement states that the telecom industry. Michaela Berg, HR Business Partner at Advania, is all candidate should have ten years’ experience within a specialist area, too familiar with the situation. She is responsible for recruitment at you are highly likely to get applications from men with considerably the company and feels strongly that things need to change. Her job at less experience, while women who do not meet the exact require- Advania is to do just that – introduce change. ments will hold back from applying, says Micheala Berg.
The pursuit of more women in the organisation is not something that is driven by ideol- ogy. There are significant commercial advantages to be gained from greater equality and inclusivity, particularly when it comes to creativity and the quality of our deliverables.
Michaela Berg, HR Business Partner at Advania
Men have a general tendency to overestimate themselves, while Michaela: women often underestimate their own abilities. This is something The pursuit of more women in the organisation is not something that needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to recruit- that is driven by ideology. There are significant commercial advantag- ment. es to be gained from greater equality and inclusivity, particularly when it comes to creativity and the quality of our deliverables. Petra Laewen at Women Ahead shares this view. You need to use different words, too. Women respond better to The initial goal of Advania is to double the number of women in terms like “interpersonal skills” and “coaching” rather than expressions operational roles and to continue increasing the number of female that are more focused on a person’s performance. managers. In parallel with this, we are also driving forward work to increase equality and diversity on a much broader scale. Having an in- Petra Laewen also points out that it is seldom enough to just adapt clusive culture is also something that needs to be cultivated and given the recruitment process in order to increase the number of women priority. It is absolutely key when it comes to sustainable results. who apply. It is often necessary for companies to change internally as well. Recruitment managers need to understand why their company She has no need to argue her case among her co-workers. Most agree is choosing to focus on increasing the number of female applicants – that it would be better to have more namely increased profitability.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 17 Sustainable Advania
Business ethics and transparency
More and more companies are operating within complex structures characterised by long supply chains that stretch across the globe. At the same time, we are also seeing positive developments in an increased interest in fighting corruption, locally as well as globally. More and more customers are also placing far-reaching demands on governance and transparency. Apart from the risks of bribery and other criminal offences in our sector, corruption also encompasses risks relating to a loss of confidence in the market. This is something that we take very seriously and which we are actively working to combat.
Advania’s work against corruption
Advania works to ensure that our operations follow the principles set out in the Global Compact, which cover anti-corruption. Our zero toler- ance approach towards corruption is firmly established in our Code of Conduct for Employees, our policy for representation and gifts, and in our Code of Conduct for Suppliers.
In 2017, the Advania Group developed an anti-corruption policy which will now be implemented across Advania in 2019. This implementation will take the form of risk analyses, the development of our procedures and the further training of our employees. With this move, we will fur- ther strengthen our governance within the domain of anti-corruption and contribute towards ensuring that the entire Advania Group has a common view and approach within the area.
Advania’s CFO is responsible for the work covered by the common anti-corruption policy and reports directly to the CEO. See the focus area entitled “Sustainable Supply Chain” (page 37) for a more detailed description of our anti-corruption work within the supply chain.
Systems for whistleblowing
We encourage all employees to report all violations of the law or our policies. Employees can report incidents either through our internal We had zero reported cases of sus- reporting system, by speaking to their immediate supervisor or to HR, or by reporting information anonymously through our external chan- pected corruption in 2018. nel for whistleblowing. Advania has made clear its guarantee that all employees who report violations or participate in investigations into re- ported incidents shall not risk any form of reprisal whatsoever. We also monitor the number of cases of corruption reported through internal channels and through our external channel for whistleblowing. We had zero reported cases of suspected corruption in 2018.
Our Code of Conduct (the code) is updated regularly and a new training GOAL course was held in 2018 for all permanent and subcontracted employees. Through our Learning Management System (LMS) platform Advania Business ethics 2019 Academy, we provided training to 97% of all employees, which rep- resented a total of 419 out of 430 employees, in 2018. Only a handful All employees shall receive of employees on long-term leave did not undergo training. By asking training on the Code of follow-up questions on the content of the course, we were able to en- Conduct within one month sure that everyone understood and supported the code. Training on the of starting their position at code is now also included as part of our on-boarding process for all new the company. employees starting with the company.
18 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
Climate-smart operations
One of the most important issues of our time is the need to limit climate change. With the level of awareness of climate change that we have today, there is no company in any sector that can avoid taking their share of responsibility. Digitali- sation plays an important role in the transition to sustainable business models and in breaking the link between emissions and growth. The IT sector is therefore in a unique position to form a part of the solution towards our transition to a climate-smart society, while companies within the sector also have a responsibility to minimise the negative climate impact that the use of IT entails.
Climate-smart and profitable operations Measures we have taken over the course of the year:
Our primary responsibility lies in streamlining our operations and reducing the emissions generated by our business activities. Advania is The office in Liljeholmen has been renovated and adapted to a de- certified in accordance with ISO14001:2015 and environmental work is sign that is more conducive to operational needs and able to offer governed by our policies for the environment, business travel, company a good and functional workspace for more employees without cars and procurement, which are integrated across the entire business. the need to expand spatially. We are proud to be using 100% renewable energy in all of our data cen- tres and in 85% of our offices. Caperio employees are included in Advania’s more environmen- tally-conscious company car policy. By actively taking responsibility for our own business, we want to signal our trustworthiness and inspire our customers to do the same. Our We have expanded our carpool agreement to cover all Advania customers come from across all sectors and all parts of society and the offices. one thing they all have in common is that they are in the midst of an ex- tensive process of digitalisation offering huge potential to reduce green- Training has been provided in the form of a Climate Quiz at house gas emissions. We can make the greatest impact, therefore, by several offices. helping our customers to reduce their climate impact through digitali- sation. In the focus area Sustainable Offerings on page 24, we describe in We have continued to offer all employees the option to rent a bike greater detail how we are realising our ambitions to contribute towards for three years. more sustainable digitalisation processes among our customers. We have held a cycling competition in which we measured and recorded the cycling habits of our employees both privately and for work over a period of two months. The approximately 60 em- ployees who competed in the environment class of the competi-
tion contributed to a combined CO2 saving of one tonne.
There was carbon offset for the kick-off in Croatia that the company carried out in May. Flights for all 359 participants were offset as part of a project mediated by ZeroMission, equivalent to
236 tonnes of CO2.
We have continued to encourage our property owners to choose environment agreements for their electricity.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 19 Sustainable Advania
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS* 115 88 604 840 Scope I (tonnes of CO2) Scope II (tonnes of CO2) Scope III (tonnes of CO2) Scope III (tonnes of CO2) without carbon offsetting includ- ed in the calculations 2017: 110 | 2016: 122 | 2015: 199 2017: 79** | 2016: 90** | 2015: 111 2017: 557 | 2016: 627 | 2015: 557
2.1 2.8 -36% -24% Emissions per employee Emissions per employee Reduction in emissions Reductions in emissions (tonnes of CO2e per employee) (tonnes of CO2e per employee per employee per employee without carbon without climate offsetting offsetting included in the included in the calculations) calculations 2017: -26% | 2016: -10% 2017: 2.5** | 2016: 3.3** | 2015: 3.7 2015: Starting point
*Caperio emissions and employees are included in the calculations for all of 2018 ** Figures for data centre emissions used in previous reports have been recalculated due to inaccurate information in 2016 and 2017
We are reducing our emissions FACTS
Advania’s climate goals encompass the entire business. The goal was The scope of the climate-relevant emis- to reduce our climate impact by at least 20% per employee by 2020 in sions we measure: comparison with the figures for 2015. We exceeded this goal in 2017, and in 2018 we are able to report once more that – in part because Caperio • Scope I – our direct greenhouse gas emissions from employees had lower emissions per person – we have exceeded the goal the operation of our company vehicles and service even further. vehicles.
• Scope II – our indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the use of heating, refrigeration and electricity Emissions from the business consumption in our offices, as well as electricity Greenhouse gas emissions from business operations at Advania are consumption in our data centres. largely related to our business travel. Further emissions come from running the offices we rent and from operating the infrastructure in • Scope III – some of our other indirect emissions, such as the data centres that we use both for our own purposes and on behalf electricity consumption in our offices, emissions from private vehicles used for business trips, and business of our customers. travel by air, train and taxi.
Number of properties with renew- Reduction in emissions per employee able energy 2018 Offices 85% Data centres 100%
Goal
20 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
Emissions from products Sold hardware, number of devices 2018 We do not currently measure the Scope III emissions that come from the sale of IT hardware in our role as a reseller on the Swedish market. Just Laptop computers 100,000 as it is for many other service firms, this constitutes a relatively large Desktop computers 6,000 proportion of our climate impact. Including all emissions from Scope III is a huge challenge as there is a lack of information about emissions Monitors/TVs 10,000 from a wide range of products, both upstream and downstream. In other Printers 1,000 words, Scope III entails comprehensive collaboration all along the supply chain. You can read more about Advania’s special market role and the Mobile phones 3,000 challenges that this entails on page 37, as well as the work we are doing Tablet computers 30,000 to exert greater influence over our supply chain. Servers 600 As an initial step towards this, in 2018 we chose to start measuring the total amount of hardware sold from the largest brands, grouped by the product types that we sell in the largest volumes. The next step in 2019 will be to develop a method to measure emissions from these products FLEET OF as far as possible. COMPANY CARS*
Eco-bonus cars
Advania’s company car policy makes it possible for drivers to choose more expensive eco-bonus cars and still enjoy advantageous market costs during the term of their lease. This change to the policy was made in 2015 and has already resulted in a rapid conversion of our company fleet. 8 % 50 % In 2018, Advania took over a large number of company cars from Caperio, which did not have the same policy. This has caused the rate of conver- Petrol Diesel sion to slow down somewhat. One challenge is that the delivery times for attractive bonus cars are comparatively longer, which causes many people to hesitate about changing cars and choose to extend their exist- 2017: 10% | 2016: 10 % 2017: 48% | 2016: 58 % ing agreement instead. Another challenge is the provision of charging facilities at the workplace as we do not own any properties or parking spaces. We are unable to meet the demand for charging at the moment and Advania is currently engaged in ongoing dialogue with the property owners of our offices on this. Despite the challenges, we are nonetheless pleased that 41% of our vehicle fleet is made up of bonus cars. 41 % 1 % The path forward Eco-bonus car** Other**** Our new goal for a climate-efficient business is to continue reducing emissions for Scopes I, II and III. The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% per employee by 2025, using the figures for 2015 as a basis. 2017: 38%*** | 2016: 25 %*** 2017: 4% | 2016: 7%
We are also continuing to convert our fleet of company cars and aim to ensure that 70% of all new cars ordered will be eco-bonus cars by 2020. *Caperio’s official cars are included in the calculations for 2018 ** Eco-bonus cars which as of 2018 are known as “bonus cars” in accordance with the current bonus-malus system in Sweden and which are defined as: Cars that are powered by electricity or which are petrol/diesel or gas-fuelled hybrid cars that emit no more than
60g CO2 per kilometre ***Eco-bonus cars which were known as super-eco cars up until 2017 and which were defined by the previous bonus system as: Cars which meet the EU’s requirements for maximum emissions of no more than 50g CO2 per kilometre
**** Other includes cars powered by ethanol or natural gas in combination with petrol or diesel
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 21 Sustainable Advania
GOAL Company cars 2019
At least 70% of new company cars are eco-bonus cars CASE Advania is number one when it comes to eco-cars!
At the recent Company Car of the Future Confer- ence in May 2018, which was organised by Swedish GOAL financial newspaper Dagens Industri, Advania’s HR Greenhouse gas Manager Maguns Wemby was one of the speakers invited alongside the country’s environment emissions 2025 minister, Karolina Skog. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions Magnus was invited to talk about the company car policy of the future and how Advania has managed to successfully convert our by at least 50% per employee vehicle fleet from one that did not contain a single super eco-car compared with 2015. in 2014 to the current fleet of more than 50%* super eco-cars today. There are only an extremely small number of companies and organisations that have managed to achieve similar results and Advania’s fleet is right at the forefront in this regard. Among other things, conference participants got to learn how Advania has developed its company car policy and chose at an early stage to focus on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and monthly costs, instead of just looking at the initial purchase price, thereby mak- ing it possible for employees to feel able to choose so-called super eco-cars.
Magnus also took part in a debate by an expert panel which discussed new forms of benefit taxation, the bonus-malus system used on the market and whether or not the new rules in Sweden are having the effects that are desired.
*The proportion of eco-cars was 50% before Advania took over Caper- io’s company cars in 2018. This brought the proportion down to 41%.
22 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable Advania
Long-term profitability
The generation of profits and returns for our owners is one of the key requisites for us to remain on the market and continue creating employment, paying taxes and thereby contributing to societal growth.
Profitable and sustainable business development Goal achievement 2018
A stable and profitable company makes it easier to recruit and retain Financial (Million SEK) 2016 2017 2018* competent staff and, thanks to our continued growth, we can offer -em ployment to even more individuals within the company. On the other Revenue 734 832 2,191 hand, declining profitability risks a shift in focus towards cost cutting Operating costs 402 462 1,656 measures and reductions to the workforce. Economic perseverance Employee wages and 278 302 424 and a long-term perspective on company development create the right compensation conditions to place even greater focus on sustainable business develop- Interest and financial charges 0.8 1 2 ment. At the same time, we are convinced that undertaking ambitious sustainability efforts today will be necessary for any company wanting Tax 7.3 10 13 to remain on the market in the long term. Investments in society 0.4 0.2 0.1
Profit or loss before 54.7 68.3 111 Advania has a persistent, long-term strategy for the company’s profita- depreciation bility, and pays taxes in all countries in which we are active. We do not Solvency 32% 29% 31% undertake any kind of tax planning that aims to reduce the amount of tax we pay. Our strategy for further growth and continued profitability Profit margin 7.5 % 8.2% 5.1% includes both organic growth and acquisitions. Continued focus on *Caperio is included for the whole of 2018 long-term customer relationships and an increased share of contracted **See our annual report for information about equity and debts. deliveries are factors for success when it comes to achieving our growth and profitability goals.
Results
With the merger of Advania and Caperio, revenue allocation has changed for the company and this has also had an effect on the profit margin. Caperio’s business consisted largely of huge volumes of prod- ucts with low margins distributed across a huge number of transac- tions. GOAL Long-term profitability 2018 is the first year in which the revenues and costs pertaining to Cape- rio’s business have been integrated into Advania, with the result that the company’s takings increased by just over 60%, from SEK 68 million to SEK 111 million, while the profit margin decreased by 5.2%, causing us to fail in our goal to achieve a 10% profit margin. 5 % The path forward Profit margin
A revised goal towards continued long-term financial profitability for (EBITDA) 2019 is a profit margin of at least 5% with a retained solvency of around 30%.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 23 FOCUS AREA II
Sustainable offerings
It is through our services and products that we have the greatest opportunities to help to build a resource-effective and long-term sustainable society. We can help our customers to navigate the digital transition and ensure that this happens with a focus on user security and privacy, while simultaneously helping our customers to choose more sustainable IT solutions.
24 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable offerings
Integrity and security
It is absolutely crucial for us as an IT supplier that our customers can feel confi- dent that their data is processed securely and that we will protect their privacy. This continues, therefore, to be one of the most important sustainability matters for the stakeholders we hold continuous dialogue with. As part of the ongoing digitisation process, we need to take a great deal of responsibility for ensuring a sustainable societal transition and this means reducing the risks around informa- tion security and integrity.
Global trends An example of this has been our GDPR monitoring work, which involved an additional internal audit carried out by an external party at The importance of this is reflected in increasingly wide-reaching legis- the end of 2018. We want to make sure that everything we do is in line lation, with two significant new regulations being introduced in 2018: with applicable legislation and the recommendations highlighted by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Network and supervisory bodies in Sweden and in Europe. The internal audit led to a Information Security (NIS) Directive. The GDPR focuses on protecting number of concrete measures which have already been implemented or personal data while the NISD is focused on increasing protection for are in the process of being implemented now. infrastructures. Further examples of the success we have had from our proactive The new legislation aims primarily to protect personal privacy, but is approach include the fact that we were able to reduce the number of also intended to provide support to companies and organisations by high risks by 60% last year compared with the year before as a result of clarifying how responsibility is distributed across different players in our planned measures and active monitoring. This reduction relates not the often complex chain of companies who all work to deliver a service only to previously identified risks, but newly identified risks have been to a customer. The new regulation has not only helped organisations significantly reduced as well. but has also created new challenges to a certain extent. This became clear, above all, when eSam* released its report on how Swedish author- Security 3.0 ities should relate to American cloud ser- More focus is now placed on proactive activities in order to The degree of vices. The background maturity among our to the report was that minimise the damage that may result from a potential attack. customers within the the USA introduced domain of securi- new legislation – the ty and privacy is Cloud Act – which enables American authorities and government agen- constantly on the rise – we can see this clearly from the way in which cies to request data from American cloud service providers regardless of security and privacy requirements now feature in tender documents where the data is actually stored. eSam considers that there is a poten- and procurement processes as standard. Customers have also increased tial conflict between the GDPR and the Cloud Act, which could result in their demands for a risk-driven approach, which is something that companies breaching the GDPR by using American cloud services. matches up very well with the way Advania views things. This shift in focus has resulted in Advania changing its approach towards security in Another considerable challenge has been the development of different 2018 to what we now refer to as Security 3.0. This means that more focus types of fraud and crime, the biggest challenge being the dramatic is now placed on proactive activities, to minimise the damage from a increase in phishing. The number of attacks increased gradually over potential attack, in contrast to our previous approach which was more the year and became more and more targeted and tailored towards reactive and involved implementing protection against known and individual recipients. The most common type of phishing is via emails, existing threats. which can seem authentic and harmless, and which encourage the re- cipient to provide sensitive personal data (such as bank account details). Training and increased awareness about the various risks and threats The consequences can be serious, both for the company and for the are more important now than ever. For this reason, Advania provided individual user, and can come in the form of financial losses, the abuse information security training to more than half of its workforce in 2018. of information, the violation of privacy, etc. The remaining employees are due to receive the same training over the course of 2019. Advania has also considerably increased the number of Advania’s work on integrity and information security its vulnerability and penetration tests, as these create the right condi- tions for increased proactivity. Because the threats and risks are constantly changing, while require- ments for compliance are increasing at the same time, our risk manage- ment and compliance work is becoming ever more important. Within Advania we continuously conduct risk analyses and audits in order to securely and predictably manage these changes to the threats and risks we face.
* www.esamverka.se
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 25 Sustainable offerings
Advania’s monitoring of its work on information security Number Description
Number of information security train- 8 sessions; Each unit/function undergoes a four-hour training course on information security, ing courses provided internally. 320 employees which also covers threats and risks.
Risk analyses covering information As a part of our risks analysis work, we perform annual risk analyses within all security performed internally. 6 business areas.
Risk analyses covering information The next stage in Advania’s risk analysis work is to involve customers in a common security performed in collaboration 4 risk analysis on an annual basis in order to further strengthen our proactive efforts. with customers.
Two incidents of stolen IT equipment (laptop computers) were reported to the Data 2 Protection Authority over the course of the year. These are not considered to have Identified data leaks 2017: 0 caused any harm to those affected as the computers contained only small amounts of 2016: 0 data and all data was protected through encryption.
Advania’s new security organisation
Responsibility for security at Advania has been clarified in 2018 through the introduction of a new security organisa- tion. This has involved the creation of two new roles – the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) and the CSO (Chief Security Officer) – who each have their own clear responsibilities for the different parts of Advania’s security work. Administrative Establishes the Technical security security framework for Chief Security O cer
The path forward Policy & Within Advania, we recognise that the requirements for Procedures Physical Security IT Security Regulations the protection of data belonging to our customers and employees will continue to increase. This is something that we view positively as it means we can continue to Audit and Compliance Data Security develop our business in a way that makes it more secure. Follow up As a result, Advania has established a number of goals for 2019 and beyond. Some of these goals are very ambitious but we consider them to be achievable through continued Communication improvement efforts. Security
GOAL 1 GOAL 3 Information security 2019 Information security 2019
Zero information leaks. Establish collaboration within the area of risk analyses with at least ten customers. GOAL 2 GOAL 4 Information security 2019 Information security 2020 Information security training for Begin the process of certi- 100% of Advania’s employees. fication in accordance with ISO 27001 or 27019 in 2019 and obtain certification by the beginning of 2020
26 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable offerings
CASE What Advania offers within the domain of integrity and information security A large part of the work on GDPR compliance concerns the management of unstructured data within the organisation. Unstructured data is data that is stored, for example, in emails, web-based platforms such as SharePoint, file server structures, cloud services and on social media platforms, and which often contains personal information. Because the data is unstructured, it presents companies with one of their biggest challenges – complying with the requirements for excising and deletion.
This is an area in which Advania is working, in a very focused Some effects of the customer’s introducing Control Point include: manner, on a service that enables data to be managed wherever it is stored. The service – Control Point – aims to analyse all of the Rapid and accurate management of requests for register data that we have stored in an unstructured form by continuously extracts and the deletion of personal data. While preparing searching and indexing them, either through pattern matching or a register extract manually used to take up to a month, through full indexation. The service then ensures that all of the it can now be down though the system in less than four data is indexed and managed in accordance with the rules set out hours. in the company’s policies, processes and procedures. The service can also determine where certain types of data should be stored, Increased traceability through the logging of events when which ensures that sensitive data, for example, which has been personal data is processed. stored in the “wrong” place can be automatically moved to the place specified in the established regulations. Reduced costs for storage and back-up. Primary storage costs have been reduced by 22%. Through its use of this tool, Advania has helped several of its customers to ensure compliance, not just with the GDPR, but also Automation of processes such as excising and archiving. with other regulations and directives such as NIS, PDL and PCI This is particularly valuable for companies that operate in DSS. An example might be a customer who uses Control Point different countries with different legal requirements. as part of their business in a number of European countries to manage more than 20 million files, email addresses and posts. The Better control mechanisms which enable the separate total volume of unstructured data is estimated to be 25-40 TB and processing of sensitive personal data. continuously growing by around 20% each year.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 27 Sustainable offerings
Sustainable IT and sustainable digitalisation
Circular economy is now a well-known term within many industries and it has been identified by the EU Commission as one of the success factors when it comes to creating a competitive and resource-effective economy. The IT sector stands on two legs – hardware and software – and both play an important role in creating circular economic models.
Advania can provide support for its customers throughout the entire lifecycle of an IT investment: from choice and purchase through to operation, support, usage and finally reuse and recycling.
Choice and purchase of sustainable IT Products with sustainability certification and energy labels Workplace as service Agile sourcing
Responsible take-back Sustainable operation Secure take-back and deletion of and usage of IT data Resource-effective IT operations The sale of used products Service and support Responsible recycling Remote working and collaboration Travel-free meetings Automated processes
Circular business models TCO Certified1 is a good example of an independent third-party sustain- ability certification that places demands on materials used, chemical There are many reasons why it is absolutely essential to make the handling and the ease with which a product can be repaired or recycled. switch from the dominating linear flows of today to circular flows, in EPEAT2 is another environmental declaration that encompasses these which a larger proportion of products and materials are reused and kinds of requirements. Advania offers products certified as sustaina- recycled. Huge amounts of energy, water and materials are used to man- ble from all of the largest manufacturers that choose to certify their ufacture a single computer, and many of the raw materials needed will products. soon be in short supply or are problematic for environmental reasons, such as the deforestation or pollution caused by their extraction. Advania’s shift from products to services
An important part of the conceptual thinking behind circular econo- In order to help our customers to optimise the life cycles of their prod- mies is to extend product lifetimes and hence reduce the extraction of ucts, Advania is undergoing a process of change by shifting its focus to virgin materials. One way in which this can be done is by choosing IT the sale of services instead of products products that are designed to be easily repairable or by reselling old products when changing model. Advania Workplace
Workplace is one of the services we offer which provides access to PCs, Creating real circular flows in the right way within IT products, howev- monitors and other IT products, together with product-related services er, will require a huge shift within the entire sector. Developing products such as support, servicing and repairs. Through our subsidiary, Advania that are designed to last for a long time and switching our mindset to Finance, we take care of products once the agreement period has lapsed, view used IT products as resources rather than waste are changes that which means that we are able to ensure that all functioning products will require entirely new business models. Not just for the huge global can take on a new life on the second-hand market after being securely companies that currently manufacture these products, but also for local erased and upgraded. All services within Advania Workplace can be resellers who make a living from the large flows of products that are purchased independently or as part of a package that includes lifecycle constantly being sold. The change will require all players in the industry management. to come together and collaborate.
1 www.tcocertified.se 2 www.epeat.net 28 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable offerings
Advania agile sourcing Hardware taken back 2018 Number (units) Advania’s sourcing services are currently among our most successful Laptop computers 10,100 offerings and they are experiencing the strongest level of growth. Our agile sourcing concept is by nature a resource-efficient way to operate an Desktop computers/Thin clients 1,400 IT infrastructure as it is based on the idea of several customers sharing Monitors 1,500 common resources. We currently take care of operations for more than Tablets 1,600 100 customers in just a handful of data centres. They share hardware through a very high degree of server virtualisation, which allows us to Smart phones 550 offer advantages through economies of scale. These result in a consid- Server 10 erably greater degree of energy and material efficiency compared with a Printers 700 situation where each customer manages their own data centre. We also guarantee 100% renewable energy in all of our data centres. TOTAL 15,860
FACTS
Advania’s repair and recycling work
Our most recent step on the path towards complete GOAL lifecycle management has been to start up our own servicing workshop in 2018, which allows us to guarantee Circular economy 2021 expedient processing. We will also be able to offer a suffi- ciently high degree of capacity for our customers’ repairs, as the demand for this type of service is increasing. Double the amount of hardware taken Through our subsidiary, Advania Finance, we took back back almost 16,000 devices in 2018, 90% of which we were able to sell on the second-hand market. Our goal for 2021 is to double the amount of hardware taken back compared with the amount in 2018.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 29 Sustainable offerings
Don’t forget that your used equip- ment may often still have economic value and remaining technical life and that there is a huge market for used equipment today.
Claes Fischerström, Advania Finance
INTERVIEW The path forward – interview with Claes at Advania Finance
We have set ourselves the initial goal of clarifying A common factor for most customers across all sectors is that there our ambition to achieve more circular flows; to is relatively little understanding of the fact that it is actually huge- increase the amount of hardware taken back and ly beneficial to the environment to return equipment and thereby ensure that it can take on a second life. processed by Advania Finance. There are a great many customers who still own their own equip- What can we do better at Advania and Advania ment and there is huge potential to increase the Finance in order to increase the amount of equip- amount of equipment taken back. By increasing ment returned?
awareness of the fact that a three-year-old PC I think we can do a lot more to increase knowledge among still has economic value and technical life re- customers when it comes to both the costs and the environmental maining, we can help customers to make both an aspects of take-backs. One thing we can improve at, for example, economically beneficial and sustainable choice by is reporting back to customers about the effects of them returning selling their equipment to Advania Finance. their equipment to us.
What do you think are the main reasons why not What would your top three pieces of advice be to everyone automatically thinks to return their customers who are still unsure what to do about used equipment to you when they replace it? their used equipment?
It depends largely on the type of business we are talking about Don’t forget that your used equipment may often still have and what the degree of maturity is when it comes to lifecycle economic value and remaining technical life and that there is a management. huge market for used equipment today. Beyond that, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving materials is one of the most We currently have huge volumes of hardware that we lease to important short-term actions we can take towards more circular schools and we get relatively few pieces of equipment back from lifecycle management within IT, and it is also the easiest thing we this. This is often because the schools give or sell the equipment to can do to help as users of IT. pupils when they leave school. Or because they want to keep the equipment so that they have their own stock of spare computers to Get in touch with us and we will lose no time in making an assess- use when a pupil’s computer breaks down. The larger school groups ment of the value this can have for your specific organisation. also have multiple opportunities to recycle equipment internally, such as by reusing them in connection with shorter courses, etc.
In many other sectors, on the other hand, there is much greater un- derstanding of lifecycle management, particularly when it comes to costs at different stages of the lifecycle, and there is a desire to optimise and realise the economic value that used equipment has.
30 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable offerings
Sustainable digitalisation
With its sustainable digitalisation efforts, Advania wishes to show In its efforts to develop sustainable digitalisation, Advania participates how we use IT as a catalyst for promoting a sustainable society. Today, in the roadmap for digitalisation consultants within the framework of digitalisation has enormous potential to heavily reduce the environ- the government’s Fossil-free Sweden initiative. One of the goals of the mental impact, and to contribute positively to social and economic roadmap is to find shared models for measuring emissions, in particu- goals. According to a report from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, it is lar, a shared method for measuring so-called “avoided emissions”, i.e., found, for example, that digitisation can have a direct effect on 30% of greenhouse gas emissions that are avoided because a specific product the emissions reductions needed by 2030 in order to comply with the or service serves the same function with a clearly lower emissions Paris Agreement. For this reason, sustainable digitalisation has been level. integrated into our operations to the highest degree possible.
Measuring the benefits of servicification and digitalisation for sus- tainability continues to be an area under development in the IT sector. Among other things, there are challenges presented by common guidelines and measurement standards for sustainable IT. Advania therefore sees it as essential to continue collaborating with our col- leagues in the industry, so that we can reach agreement on principles, guidelines and standards.
“Applied properly, digitalisation can lead to a system change that will dramatically reduce emissions. Now it is time for our politicians to create the right conditions to make new business models possible and ensure that the power of digi- tisation is used in an optimal manner,” says Svante Axelsson, National Coordinator for Fossil Free Sweden.
In the roadmap we describe the different levels at which digitalisation can lead to a reduced environ- CASE mental impact: Optimisation, whereby environmental impact can be Fossil Free Sweden – A roadmap reduced within the framework of the existing system. Exam- ples of this include smarter facility management in order to for digitalisation consultants reduce energy consumption, or environmental certification in order to identify which products cause the least environmen- In 2018, a huge number of Sweden’s IT con- tal harm. sultants came together and accepted the government’s challenge to help make Swe- Acceleration, whereby new solutions or best practice can be den fossil free by 2045. The focus of the work highlighted and accelerated so that they become mainstream. This involves going beyond the existing system and it can also was to establish common commitments for lead to huge improvements. the industry, but also to develop the initia- tives the industry needs from politics in Transformation, which involves looking past both product order to succeed. In contrast to the roadmap and system, and where the playing field is changed com- used in many other industries, our focus has pletely through new technologies, new infrastructures and been on how the IT sector can become new business models as a result. Examples from the sharing fossil-free and how we as an industry can do economy include carpooling, the rental of private homes and music streaming, which in just a few short years almost our bit to help all other sectors in society to completely eliminated the sale of physical CDs and records become fossil-free. About 30 consulting across the globe. companies signed up to the plan that was submitted in March of 2019.
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Advania’s digital solutions
Climate-smart solutions
Many of our services are directly linked to our customers’ reduced envi- challenge of contributing to a more sustainable society through the ronmental impact. One clear example is our digital solutions with Micro- digitalisation of Sweden’s most important setting – the classroom. Today, soft Teams and Skype for business. These programmes simplify remote Advania is one of the largest IT suppliers for Sweden’s schools, and with work opportunities, long-distance collaborations and digital meetings, that comes a tremendous responsibility to contribute to the digitalisa- which directly contribute to a reduced need for travel, both in terms of tion efforts which lead to the social and economic effects we would like day-to-day commuting and business travel. These types of solutions to see in our society. are transformational, and over time will change the way we work and eventually reduce the need for office space. This may ultimately affect The biggest challenge we face today is not access to IT products in the the way we choose to live our lives and where we live, as employees may classroom, but a lack of digital expertise among the country’s teachers. no longer be bound to a particular location. We are not currently realising the full potential of new pedagogical methods; instead, the computer is seen more as a cost-effective replace- Advania School Partner – digitalisation to promote ment for books. In light of this, Advania offers our school customers social values training in the use of digital tools in their teaching methods. We have a network of 60 educators with digitisation expertise and experience, who One of Sweden’s overarching policy objectives is to become the world work for us on an assignment basis, helping other schools and teachers leader in the exploitation of opportunities offered by digital resources, to adopt the best practices. which includes a focus on its schools. Advania School Partner is a business area that has embraced the
AV1 serves as the student's eyes and ears in the classroom and creates opportunities to participate interactively, both during normal instruc- tion or during breaks, or even remotely during school outings.
Speak up – Whistleblower channel for pupils AV1 – Makes it easier for pupils to get involved at school We also offer other complementary services, which are fully adapted to the school's needs, where we are seeing a clear impact on sustainability. AV1, from the company No Isolation, is a smart robot that makes it eas- For example, Advania is a seller of the app, Speak Up, which is a whistle- ier for pupils to return to the classroom and join in lessons after being blower channel for pupils so they can easily and anonymously report away from school for an extended period. There are many different any abuse or misconduct directly to the school administrators. This reasons why more and more pupils are staying at home for extended might be bullying on social media or things that occur in the classroom, periods, and a number of different measures need to be taken to address and the pupils can easily send images or messages about what has this. One thing that pupils currently have in common is that the longer happened. Once the school administrators become aware of bullying or they stay away, the harder it is for them to return to the classroom and misconduct, they are obliged to take action. The problem today is that a their lessons. AV1 serves as the student's eyes and ears in the classroom lot of bullying and misconduct occurs over channels that adults have no and creates opportunities to participate interactively, both during insight into, and if the school administrators are unaware of a problem, normal instruction or during breaks, or even remotely during school no action will be taken. outings. In this way, it is not such a big step to return to the classroom. Advania sells and hires out AV1 robots along with a mobile phone subscription, so that they can be used outside of the school’s wireless network.
32 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable offerings
There are many fantastic educa- tors who are taking advantage of the potential that properly im- plemented digitisation can create and who are a part of the effort to drive development forward to create the world's best digitised schools!
INTERVIEW Johan Lindström, Advania School Partner Interview with Johan Lindström at Advania School Partner
What is the current status of digitisation in Then there is the fact that the media loves to deal in black Swedish schools right now? and white issues, where it’s easy to identify opposing sides, where some people are for and some against a specific We are seeing a high rate of digitalisation right now, issue. From the media’s perspective, debate is quite simply partially due to the new curriculum that took effect in the more interesting than dialogue. Behaviour grading in the 2018-2019 school year, which clearly stipulates that schools classroom is another such black and white issue. must be digitised. This is leading to rapid and substan- tial changes, and we need to be able to develop both the What do you think is needed in terms of policy, expertise and the training materials in parallel with our and what can Advania contribute to the objective investment in the digitisation infrastructure. of creating the world's best digitised schools?
There are still a lot of teachers who lack skills in the area From a political standpoint, we need less debate and and who have not had it integrated into their teacher more dialogue. We need to talk more about how we can training, so there is no quick fix. Despite the changes to use IT to solve our current problems in the schools, instead the school curriculum, the curriculum in teacher training of creating new challenges relating to technical problems, programmes has not been changed to incorporate digitisa- lack of knowledge and runaway costs. It is also very impor- tion, so it simply does not sync up. tant that we take a long-term perspective for our schools, at least 15 -20 years. To ensure that it is not a political issue, An added complication to the digitalisation process is that, but to strive to reach consensus and make broad policy in practice, we are also seeing cuts to school budgets in the agreements. majority of municipalities across Sweden. The generally large teacher shortage also makes it difficult for digitisa- We at Advania can contribute by holding a more nuanced tion to make a full breakthrough. debate, and with our own knowledge and insight, we can help to shed light on all the grey areas, that is, both Why is so much of the policy debate centred the advantages and the disadvantages of current devel- around symbolic issues, such as whether mobile opments. We can also spread effective strategies among phones should be banned from the classroom? schools, since, in practice, this type of shared forum does not exist today. But even though we see a large number My belief is that it’s primarily because that is a way for of challenges we need to help to solve, we also see a lot of politicians to show they are taking decisive actions. The effective strategies coming out of the schools today. There really big challenges we are facing are too complex, and it are many fantastic educators who are taking advantage of is difficult to find quick policy solutions for them. the potential that properly implemented digitisation can create and who are a part of the effort to drive develop- ment forward to create the world's best digitalised schools!
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 33 Sustainable offerings
The path forward
Our objective for 2019 is to integrate sales targets for the offerings in our business plan that have the greatest potential for sustainable IT and digitalisation. GOAL Sustainable IT 2019 An important part of our participation in the industry-wide Fossil-free Sweden initiative is finding a way to measure avoided emissions. Our ambition is to be able to apply the model to our offerings so that we can Integrate sales targets for be competitive on the market while offering the most climate-smart solutions. Another area of development is the need to increase knowl- the offerings that have edge and skills regarding the potential of digitisation for sustainable the greatest potential for development. Advania is therefore part of an initiative which is intend- sustainable IT and digiti- ed in part to develop a common understanding of the knowledge that is sation into our business needed and partly to train our consultants in this area. plan.
the city of Gurgaon in the state of Haryana, to determine what the conditions were like in terms of being able to store and charge laptops in the classroom and how well the infrastructure was developed for electricity and wireless networks.
An initial target in the project is to provide 100 schools with laptops, which will give the schools access to Kunskapsskolan’s school platform and its content.
After our trip to India, a number of legal and logistical challeng- es remain. Among other things, India has very strict laws con- cerning the import of used electronics. This is due to previous problems in the country of electronic waste disposal not being carried out in an environmentally safe manner. CASE We hope to make progress with the project in 2019 so that we can start to deliver greater quantities of laptops to the schools! Community project, Kunskapsskolan in India The school visit made a strong impression and a One of Advania’s customers, Kunskapsskolan, desire to contribute. We were greeted by students who were highly motivated and happy for the op- has been operating for several years in India, portunity to receive vocational training. It was also where they run their own schools across a apparent that it would be an incredibly valuable number of Indian states. thing if the students had access to computers and the internet so they could better assimilate the content in the education programme. In addition to its own activities in India, Kunskapsskolan has helped develop a school platform for vocational training for use in Here, it is all about being able to make a real differ- a number of state schools. This is a project where Kunskapsskolan ence. For the children who participate, the training has collaborated with an Indian state organisation by contribut- programme offers an opportunity for them to pull ing its technical and pedagogical expertise to help schools lacking themselves out of poverty. It is incredibly important resources to digitise their activities. for their future, and it would be highly beneficial if we could help to improve the basic conditions for In the autumn of 2018, Advania completed a pilot project to deter- success by providing computers. mine how we could contribute to the project Kunskapsskolan al- Annelie Fredsberg, CIO Kunskapsskolan ready had up and running by providing used laptops for the Indian schools. We carried out study visits at three of the schools in
34 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable offerings
Customer satisfaction
Advania's strategy is to be a company with a high level of customer satisfaction and long-standing customer relationships. Our ability to create real value to our customers is crucial, and it paves the way to Advania’s long-term, sustainable success.
Quality in focus Creating value for our customers
In connection with the acquisition of Caperio and the growth this In order to gain a clear insight into our customers' demands, needs, brought, there was a greater need for more systematic work on cus- expectations and experience of our performance, we carry out a variety tomer satisfaction. In order to continue to have the highest customer of customer surveys annually. Some surveys aim to give a deeper insight satisfaction in the industry and attract new customers at the same time, into our customers' demands and expectations and their perception Advania chose to certify parts of the business in accordance with the of whether we are living up to those demands and expectations. Other quality management standard ISO 9001:2015 during 2018. surveys are intended to establish benchmarking against other players in the IT industry. In 2018, we have also started developing NPS (Net The IT industry is one of the fastest growing industries today, which Promoter Score) measurements. means we need to work with the agility to constantly improve in all of our business areas. Above all, we need to take a holistic view of each individual improvement we make in order to have the greatest effect on The industry’s principal survey, Supplier Quality 2018 (carried out by the customer’s experience. Our quality management system will allow Radar Ecosystem Specialists), shows that Advania continues to be a us to maintain a focus on the customer in our business development leader in creating value for its customers. In 2018, just as in 2016 and 2017, efforts so that we continue to have the highest customer satisfaction in Advania was placed at the top of the survey. This time in three out of Sweden. four categories!
FACTS
The principles for our quality manage- ment are:
• Customer focus • Leadership • Employee engagement Positioning Positioning • Process-orientation Category 2017 2018 • Improvement IT users 1st1 1st • Evidence-based decisions • Relationship management Business-oriented IT 2nd 2nd
Consultancy services 3rd
CRRCRR topp top 200 -customerskunder Our vision - “Never lose a customer” 100,0% 93,5% 93,5% Advania works on the assumption that a satisfied customer will remain 95,0% 92,0% 90,5% Goal a customer, so we also measure our ability to retain our customers. This 89,0% 90,0% is measured in our annual “Customer Retention Rate” of our 200 biggest 83,5% customers. What we do is measure the proportion of all customers who 85,0% were also customers the previous year. The results for 2018 were very 80,0% satisfying, and we exceeded are goal of 93% retention by 0.5%. Customer surveys carried out also show that the merger of Advania and Caperio 75,0% AB did not have an impact on the positive image customers had of the 70,0% companies prior to the merger. From the customers’ point of view, 1 plus 1 equals 3 in this case, as Advania now has an even wider range of 65,0% offerings on the market. 60,0% 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 35 Sustainable offerings
The path forward
An important tool to help us to realise our vision is the CRR target for our 200 largest customers, which we have raised to 94% for 2019. We are very proud to have predominantly satisfied customers already, and that we seldom lose an existing customer. We believe that customers who feel that their supplier is responsive, proactive, easy to cooperate with GOAL and keeps their promises will continue to work with that supplier. Quality 2019 Advania's strong position has allowed us to focus on improving our op- erations further through several smaller initiatives, rather than seeking Retain at least 94% of our change through larger projects. Any efforts we make to streamline our 200 largest customers operations should always be based on the customer’s perspective, and our main focus going forward will be further improvements within the (CRR) areas below:
• Agility incorporated into customer collaborations • Customised business offerings • Delivery reliability
Furthermore, I would say that we have gone from being open to change to being open to improvement. What I mean by this is that we now measure, analyse and evaluate to a greater extent, before we make decisions relating to the development of our operations. This is to ensure that the development of the company actually leads to improvements for the customer.
Finally, I would say the certification of the management system itself has helped employees to get a sort of “mental confirmation” that we have a well-functioning business, something that has given them a boost in their conversations with customers and other stakeholders.
How do you think the customers have noticed INTERVIEW that we now have a certified management system? Interview with Benny Lundstedt, Given the fact that Advania has historically had a high level of customer satisfaction, I don’t think they have noticed any major Quality Manager at Advania changes. Our philosophy is to improve our offerings and the customer experience in small, iterative steps, so that we don’t risk During 2017-2018, you have led efforts to estab- changing what the customers already like about us at present. lish the management system and attain quality However, I hope they take note of an even clearer focus on our part certification for us, and you have also been concerning their needs/demands as well as their views concerning able to take a closer look at the effects on the the products and services we deliver to them. This represents the company on this basis. What are the biggest starting point of our improvement efforts. differences you see? My personal assessment is that we are now in a position where Above all, I think that the clearest effect has been that employ- we can adopt a more systematic approach to improving our ees now have a better big-picture view of how their individual operations, and at the same time, we have the tools we need to contributions, along with all of the other initiatives the company ensure that this has an outcome that benefits our customers. I am is engaged in, are interconnected with what we call the “manage- convinced that in the future our customers will notice many more ment system”. It is rarely the case that a single employee is the sole clear improvements, which will reinforce their belief that Advania deciding factor for whether a customer is satisfied with Advania; it makes it easy for them to grow in terms of their IT solutions. is really a team effort!
36 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 FOCUS AREA III
Sustainable supply chain
Our customers are demanding increasing transparency in how we work to comply with global framework initiatives on human rights, working conditions, environmental protection and corruption.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 37 Sustainable supply chain
Requirements and monitoring of our suppliers
Transparency in the IT products supply chain is something that more and more of our customers are demanding in their procurements. In the current complex global network of suppliers of raw materials, components and hardware assemblies, creat- ing transparency throughout the entire supply chain is no small task. As a customer, it is a challenge to set requirements that drive real change, and which can be moni- tored. But at the same time, large global corporations are working constantly to improve the traceability of their products, thus increasing transparency and offer- ing a look into the working conditions far down in the supplier chain.
Advania’s influence capital Minimising risks in the supply chain As a reseller, much like other IT resellers working locally or Over the last few years, Advania has developed a process for regionally in Sweden or Europe, Advania is generally a much working systematically to minimise risk in our supply chain. In smaller company in comparison with the global IT manufactur- order to create an overview of potential risk areas and identify high-risk ing companies. This imbalance makes it very challenging for us suppliers, an overall risk analysis of global IT hardware production to make comprehensive demands in our business agreements. was carried out in 2017. The focus was on final assembly, component With our special position in the market, it is more effective for us to exercise our influence within sustainability by applying manufacturing, mineral extraction in mines and smelting plants. In the long-term collaboration models with our partners and through risk analysis, risks were assessed on the basis of where production is collaboration with our customers. located and how large the risks of deviations to the Global Compact's 10 principles are in these countries. The analysis shows that risks become By assisting our customers with knowledge enhancement and more and more serious the further down the supply chain you go, and support when formulating requirements, we can jointly pro- that the greatest risks are found in the area of mineral extraction. mote efforts to increase transparency and, over the long term, help to shed light on and address problems further down the IT Identified risk areas with the highest risk value* in order of product supply chain. We carry out this work through ongoing priority: dialogue with our customers, for example, and participation in the Swedish IT and Telecom Industries’ Sustainability council, of which Advania's Sustainability Manager has been the Vice Corruption and workers’ rights in mines and smelting plants Chairman for a number of years. The council regularly meets 1 with relevant interested parties including government author- ities, who work within public procurement, where we spread awareness of how the industry works and provide recommen- 2 Workers’ rights in component manufacturing and final assembly dations on setting requirements in public procurement.
3 Corruption in component manufacturing and final assembly
FACTS 4 Child labour, forced labour and environmental impact in mines In our work to achieve a sustainable supply chain, we and smelting plants use the term suppliers. These suppliers can be divided Forced labour in final assembly into the following sub-groups: 5
* The risk value is a multiplication of the impact and probability. Partners – The suppliers who manufacture the products and provide the services for which we are a reseller on the Swedish market. The strategic partners we collaborate with the most are Apple, Cisco, Dell, The risk analysis also showed that approximately 30% of the suppliers Genesys, Google, Hitachi, HPE, HP Inc, Lenovo, Mi- covered by our survey can be considered to have a significant environ- crosoft, ServiceNow, Veritas and VMware, but we also mental impact and/or social impact through their activities. The impact collaborate with a large number of other brands whose lasts throughout the lifetime of the products that are produced and products we sell. relates to the high consumption of energy, materials and water as well as the risk of corruption or human rights violations, child labour, forced Distributors – The suppliers we employ for logistics labour and poor working conditions. services, such as warehousing and the transport of products to our customers. The results of the risk analysis are applied to group our suppliers into two risk classes; hardware manufacturing partners were assigned a Internal suppliers – The companies who provide higher risk class (Risk Class I) while software and service companies products and services to us at Advania internally. were assigned a lower risk class (Risk Class II).
38 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 Sustainable supply chain
FACTS Results from the self-assessment form and the follow-up dialogue Responsible Business Alliance showed that 31% of our suppliers were approved, with no identified deviations. 42% of responses from suppliers showed minor deficiencies Most of our partners work together on code of conduct policies, within one or more of the areas we evaluated. These deficiencies did not audits and monitoring of their subcontractors, which they do constitute a major risk of deviation from the code. None of the suppliers through the organisation the Responsible Business Alliance we evaluated had any critical deviations. (RBA). Most of the large global IT companies cooperate within Supplier development the organisation, including the automotive industry and toy industry, which have a common thread in that their products Monitoring of the evaluated forms started in the spring of 2018 and contain a great deal of electronic components. For 15 years, RBA was carried out in two steps. In step one, monitoring of suppliers was has made strong contributions to the creation of a common carried out in writing. 100% of the suppliers with identified deviations framework for establishing requirements and monitoring its received written feedback with suggestions in areas where we identified supply chain, and, by regularly raising the level of the require- room for improvement. In step two, we monitored partners who were ments in its code of conduct, the alliance has clearly driven assigned to Risk Class I (high-risk partners), where we followed up on improvements in the sector. Advania keeps up to date on RBA’s the form with in-person meetings and established a model for coopera- work by participating in meetings that are open to the general tion. Our cooperation model for high-risk partners ensures that we have public and we attended the annual conference just outside San identified contact persons for ongoing dialogue and that we hold regu- Francisco in November 2018, where we learned more about RBA’s lar meetings to evaluate and monitor the supplier’s sustainability work. progress, including progress regarding the traceability of conflict Our objective in this cooperation is that the partner will ultimately be minerals. approved in our evaluation.
Supplier evaluation Our goal for 2018 was to establish a deeper level of cooperation for dia- logue concerning the sustainable supply chain with all of the suppliers Advania's efforts to minimise risks in the supply chain also include a we identified as Risk Class I, which we have succeeded in doing for 6 out more in-depth evaluation of our suppliers. Advania's supplier evaluation of 9 suppliers in Risk Class I. is based on our supplier code, which is based on the principles of the Global Compact with an addition that concerns conflict minerals. The The suppliers who did not respond to our questionnaire indicated that code was updated in 2017 and has been communicated to our suppliers they lacked the capacity to respond to individual questionnaires from since that time. The code encompasses all areas relating to sustainabil- all of their customers and partners due to the fact that they have a ity that our suppliers must comply with if they are to collaborate with very large number of global resellers. Instead, they have referred us to us. publicly available published information. From the publicly available documentation, we are able to verify a great deal of what is contained in From autumn 2017 to spring 2018, we evaluated almost 30 suppliers, who the questionnaire, but we feel it is important to also have an estab- collectively account for 90% of our product turnover. The suppliers lished, direct exchange with all of our strategic partners concerning all we have evaluated are primarily partners who manufacture hardware areas covered by our supplier code. In cooperation with Advania’s man- or software, or provide services that are included in our customer agement team, we have elevated the discussion concerning this issue deliveries. This also includes the major distributors we use for ware- to the highest local level in Sweden. We are also striving to ensure that housing and transportation of the products. A small number of internal our strategic partners respond to the questionnaire in 2019. No supplier suppliers have also been evaluated, mainly those suppliers who have contracts were terminated due to the evaluation. a significant impact on the environmental aspects we have prioritised, such as travel agencies, company vehicle suppliers, etc. The path forward We have used a self-assessment form to evaluate our suppliers' com- In 2019, the number of suppliers we use will be expanded further to in- pliance with the requirements we have set in our supplier code. The clude more hardware manufacturing brands and suppliers of products requirements are the same for all suppliers, but our assessment differs we sell in larger volumes on the Swedish market. We have also invested depending on the risk class, with stricter assessment criteria applied for in system support to make the questionnaire process more efficient and suppliers in Risk Class I. easier to handle, both for our suppliers and ourselves.
The form asked suppliers to answer questions within five Our goal for 2019 is that all suppliers selected for the survey will respond areas: to our supplier questionnaire, and that we will establish a deeper level of cooperation with all of the hardware manufacturing partners who are included in the evaluation. 1 Governance
Social responsibility and 2 human rights Approved with Approved with Critical Response no deviations minor deviations deviations missing 3 Business ethics and transparency Number of suppliers 8 (31%) 11 (42%) 0% 7 (27%) evaluated 4 Environment
5 Quality
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 39 About this sustainability report
A final word from the Sustainability Manager - Moving Advania forward
Digitalisation is ultimately a catalyst for change, not a universal solution to the climate issue.
Helena Nordin, Sustainability Manager
Digitalisation – A catalyst for change Advania’s development in sustainability
2018 was strongly characterised by increasingly apparent and alarming With the merger of Advania and Caperio in the rear-view mirror, one signs of climate change, with drought, fires and other types of extreme thing that strikes me the most is how easy it has been to integrate weather, depending on where you looked in the world. In Sweden and Caperio into Advania’s strategy, and the tremendous synergies we have across large parts of the world, the political debate intensified, as did the seen since we started working together. We continued to build upon debate in the public at large, regarding how we could get the transition the strategy by expanding the number of global goals from Agenda to a fossil-free society to gather momentum and turn words into real 2030, adding Goal 4 on good education for all. This is a natural addition action. to our strategy, since Caperio has been very successful in taking on the challenge of digitising Sweden’s schools. Incorporating Caperio's This transition needs to be done at all levels in unison, both on the certified quality and environmental management system into Advania's global level and locally on the political arena, in the business world and operations has also had a very positive impact in terms of structure, on the individual level. Furthermore, society needs to be transformed at transparency and credibility. a pace we have never seen before. At Group level, we have established a Nordic working group, with rep- Digitalisation and technological developments are still largely what resentatives for Norway, Sweden and Iceland, who will work together in many people are pinning their hopes on, since people believe it is possi- the future. This year’s agenda includes the completion of our first joint ble to scale up and create a global impact at the pace that is needed. For sustainability report for financial year 2019. The report will fulfil the Advania’s part, this means partly that we, as a member of the industry, requirements of the UN Global Compact, of which we became members need to keep doing what we are already doing, but even faster and with at the beginning of 2019. a closer eye on sustainability issues, to ensure that we use technology in a responsible manner. As Sustainability Manager, it is especially satisfying to see that the changes we have made over the years have allowed us to reduce our Digitalisation is ultimately a catalyst for change, not a universal solution greenhouse gas emissions by 36% since 2015. We have now raised our to the climate issue. If digitisation is used primarily to facilitate contin- level of ambition significantly and have set new targets to reduce ued mass consumption instead, through smarter e-commerce platforms emissions by 50% per employee by 2025. Reaching this target will be an for example, IT will then become part of the problem. even greater challenge for Advania, but it is something we must commit ourselves to, since reducing emissions is the only thing that ultimately Cooperation within the industry is more important than ever. We need makes a difference in reducing the impact of climate change. to find shared methods and guidelines, so that we can measure avoided greenhouse gas emissions, for example, and collectively share all of the Advania is on the right path in other areas, but we still have a lot of good examples of how digitisation can lead to tangible positive effects work ahead of us. In terms of gender equality, the proportion of women on greenhouse gas emissions or solutions to other sustainability chal- working at the company is gradually increasing, but there is still a lack lenges. That is why Advania has chosen to participate in the Fossil-free of women in the management team, and at board level the trend has Sweden initiative, and over the course of the year we have actively even slipped backwards. There are currently no women in the Group participated in developing the roadmap for the digitalisation consult- Board or in Advania’s Board. ants (see P. 31 for more information). It is incredibly exciting that a huge portion of Sweden's IT and digitalisation consultants have gathered After an eventful 2018, I am excited to have the opportunity to continue around a shared road map, and in 2019, it’s time to start the work to live to drive Advania’s sustainability work forward and to further strengthen up to our commitments! our role as a catalyst in the transition to a sustainable digital world.
40 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 About this sustainability report
About this sustainability report
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 41 About this sustainability report
The process for materiality assessments
How we determine the focus for our sustainability work
Advania's sustainability work focuses on the economic, social and environmental areas that are considered to be the most critical for the business. These areas are identified in a materiality assessment which we carry out by engaging in dialogue with our most important stake- holders, and through an analysis of the areas' impact on our operations and business environment.
The process for materiality assessments 4 Prioritisation – We calibrate our priorities within critical areas on 1 Identification – A rough list of relevant economic, environmental the basis of the priorities of our stakeholders and the results of our and social areas is developed on the basis of Advania’s present situ- risk analysis. ation, a benchmark against leading colleagues in the sector and cur- rent and impending legislation. In an internal workshop we identify 5 Anchoring – The results from the prioritisation process are validated the areas that are the most relevant on the basis of Advania's impact and anchored in Advania’s management team. The results from the (of and on the operations) and business strategy. The issues that are latest materiality assessment (2016-2017) identified 9 critical areas identified as being the most relevant go further along the process. which we have chosen to prioritise in 2017-2018, and which are includ- ed in this report (see P. 5 for an overview). Some examples of other 2 Stakeholder dialogue – We engage in dialogue with our most areas that are relevant to the business but not assessed as critical in- important stakeholders, based on their level of interest and impact, clude sponsorship and charity as well as the business’s water usage. to reconcile their expectations of Advania in terms of sustainability with our own expectations and to determine which of the relevant In 2019 we will review and intensify our materiality assessment to ensure areas of sustainability they believe are the most important for us to that we are focused on the right areas and have optimised our priorities. address in the future. The last stakeholder dialogue included 20 indi- viduals from 11 different organisations, representing our customers, owners, employees and partners.
3 Risk analysis – The impact Advania’s operations has on the relevant areas and vice versa is analysed through a risk analysis. The external and/or internal risks associated with each area are assessed on the basis of the probability that the risk will occur as well as a quantifi- cation of the potential consequences if the risk does occur. The most recent risk analysis conducted by Advania’s management team.
Stakeholder dialogue
Stakeholders Forums Issues Most important areas Customers - private and public Meetings, questionnaires, inter- Materiality assessment, Sustaina- Information security sectors views ble procurement, New legislation Take-back and reuse/recycling Requirements and monitoring of our suppliers Ownership through the Board Workshops, questionnaires Materiality assessment Information security and privacy Financial Results Ethics and transparency Employees Questionnaires Materiality assessment Consultation with our customers concerning sustainable IT Internal work environment efforts Environmental management system Partners, industry colleagues Questionnaires, interviews, Materiality analysis, Legislation, Information security and privacy Sustainability committee in Procurement, Cooperation, Codes Ethics and transparency the Swedish IT and Telecom of conduct, Supply chain Consultation with our customers concerning Industries sustainable IT Authorities Meetings Impending legislation Transparency and reporting Environmental taxes Energy survey Not-for-profit organisations Meetings Collaborations in Sustainable IT, Transparency and reporting Social responsibility in the supply Environmental certification chain Social responsibility within the supply chain
42 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 About this sustainability report
Risk analysis
Advania’s management team conducted a risk analysis in May 2017. Of the identified and ranked risks, those risks that are the most important to address are defined below (see table).
Critical area Risk area Risk description Risk management Long-term profitability Competences, development and A lack of skills due to the rapid Managed by providing ongoing sales rate of change in the IT sector, training and by being an attractive poor gender distribution or low employer; managed through our diversity; risk of reduced sales and diversity plan; managed through our lost customers if the customer quality management system. experience deteriorates. Attractive employer Competences and development Lack of staff competency due to Managed by providing ongoing the rapid pace of change in the IT training and by being an attractive industry or high staff turnover. employer. Leadership Difficulty recruiting and retaining Managed through recruitment and good leaders who are the key to leadership development initiatives employee retention and develop- ing the business Organisational and social working Stress/fatigue during periodically In 2017 the sickness rate decreased environment heavy workloads, contravention of compared with 2016, but continues working hour laws, discrimination, to be an area of focus. The HR man- harassment. ager is responsible for ensuring com- pliance with laws and implementing the equality policy. Physical work environment Sedentary work, poor ergonomics Good ergonomics is ensured through cooperation with the consultant Previa. Employee health is managed through means such as a wellness allowance and investment in staff bicycles. Diversity and gender equality Competences and development Gaps in competencies during Managed through our diversity plan. recruitment and lost potential for higher efficiency. Ethics and transparency Bribery Risk of bribery during sales. Managed through group-wide an- ti-corruption policies, among other things. Climate-efficient operations Energy consumption and green- Energy consumption and green- Managed through the company’s house gas emissions house gas emissions from the environmental management system. company’s own operations in its offices and data centres as well as from travel and transport. Privacy and security Information security Risk of deficiencies in information Chief information security officer security due to poorly established responsible for the information policies that are not adhered to. security management system. Sustainable IT Environmental impact from the Significant energy and resource Managed through advice to cus- company’s products and services consumption throughout the IT tomers and by offering hardware hardware life cycle. take-back for reuse/recycling. Customer satisfaction Sales Risk of reduced sales and lost Managed through our quality man- customers due to poor customer agement system. experiences. Requirements and monitoring in the Social responsibility within the Risk of contributing to human Managed through the partner pro- supply chain supply chain rights violations; child labour; gramme described in “Sustainable forced labour; poor physical, supply chain”. organisational, and social work environments; employment law contraventions, environmental crime, corruption.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 43 About this sustainability report
How we are working to achieve the UN’s Global Goals
Objective 4. Quality education
4.3 Equal access to affordable technical, vocational and higher education
Advania School Partner contributes to the digitisation of Swedish schools and helps to create equal schooling where all pupils have access to IT. We also take responsibility for the manner in which technology is implemented at school and provide continuing IT training for teachers.
Goal 5. Gender equality
5.1 End discrimination against women and girls 5.5 Ensure full participation in leadership and deci- sionmaking Advania’s diversity policy describes our zero-tolerance of all forms of discrimination in accordance with the principles of the Discrimination We work actively to increase the proportion of women in the company Act. Our supplier code of conduct establishes requirements for respect in roles that currently have a low representation of female employees. for human rights and zero tolerance of discrimination. We work to One of the groups that have been prioritised is management roles at all counteract any form of discrimination in our recruitment process and in levels in the company. the workplace. We offer an anonymous whistleblower channel for both our employees and external partners who wish to report misconduct. We encourage local trade unions. Goal 8. Decent working conditions and economic growth
8.1 Sustainable economic growth channel for both our employees and external partners who wish to report misconduct. We encourage local trade unions. Advania has a persistent, long-term strategy for the company’s profita- bility, and pays taxes in all countries in which we are active. We do not undertake any kind of tax planning that aims to reduce the amount of 8.7 End modern slavery, trafficking and child labour tax we pay. We carry out a risk analysis of our supply chain on an ongoing basis which includes social, environmental and economic aspects. We place 8.4 Improve resource efficiency in consumption and stringent demands on our suppliers, including a requirement to work to production prevent forced labour, slave labour, human trafficking and child labour, and we actively monitor our suppliers to check compliance with these We work actively to improve our own energy and resource efficiency requirements. and offer resource-efficient solutions to our customers through our sales of IT as a service. Our code of conduct establishes requirements for our suppliers to reduce the environmental footprint of their prod- 8.8 Protect labour rights and promote safe working ucts. We offer our customers a safe way to return used products and environments ensure that all functioning products are reused. We offer all employees secure forms of employment, good working 8.5 Full employment and decent work with equal pay conditions and good opportunities for salary development.
We work to counteract any form of discrimination in our recruitment process and in the workplace. We offer an anonymous whistleblower
44 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 About this sustainability report
Goal 12. Responsible consumption and production
12.1 Implement the 10-year sustainable consumption and production framework 12.2 Sustainable management and use of natural resources 12.5 Substantially reduce waste generation 12.6 Encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices and sustainability reporting 12.7 Promote sustainable public procurement practices
Advania has integrated sustainability aspects into our business activities We sell a large portion of our services to the public sector, and meet the, and has developed our IT service sales to create a more resource-effi- often stringent, requirements for sustainable public procurement estab- cient, circular flow of materials. lished for the sector. We also work proactively to promote the further development of sustainable procurement by contributing our experi- Through our subsidiary, Advania Finance, we ensure that used products ence and expertise in the establishment of requirements in this area. are taken back in a safe, responsible manner and sell used IT products on the second-hand market. Advania carries out transparent sustainability reporting in accordance with GRI standards, while the content of our report is based on our ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders.
Goal 13. Climate action
13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related disasters
We measure and report our greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the GHG Protocol and work actively to reduce emissions in our activities. Our supplier code of conduct is also a tool for us to encourage them to work towards reducing their climate impact in the supply chain. With our digitisation solutions we can help our customers to reduce their climate impact in their own businesses.
Goal 17. Partnership for the goals
17.11 Increase the exports from developing countries 17.17 Encourage effective partnerships
Advania is one link in the global IT product supply chain, and, as such, Advania's participation in the government initiative, Fossil-free Sweden, contributes to increased exports from developing countries. is a great example of a public-private cooperation in which we contrib- ute to the promotion of sustainable development. 17.14 Enhance policy coherence for sustainable devel- opment
By supporting and spreading information about the work that is being done within the international, multi-industry network, RBA (Responsi- ble Business Alliance), we contribute to the establishment of sustainable standards throughout the value chain.
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 45 About this sustainability report
Measuring of greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the GHG Protocol
GHG Scope Activity Data collection Conversion factor Source Scope I
Travel in company vehicles Volume of fuel filled with fuel Emissions factor: 128.5 g CO2e/ Estimates for new cars in card. km for diesel with an estimat- Sweden 2014, www.trafikverket.
ed consumption of 0.52 l/10 km. ineko.se, GWP for CO2, meth- ane and nitrous oxide. Travel in service vehicles Reported business mileage in Emissions factors: Estimates for new Swedish miles (10 km) with Tank to wheel: cars in Sweden 2014
mileage allowance. 128.5 g CO2e/km diesel, (www. trafikverket.ineko.se),
130 g CO2e/km petrol, GWP for CO2, methane and
33 g CO2e/km ethanol, nitrous oxide.
68 g CO2e/km vehicle’s-gas85/ petrol15,
47.6 g CO2e/km ethanol85/petrol15
43 g CO2e/km plug-in hybrid electric/petrol,
46 g CO2e/km plug-in hybrid electric/diesel Scope II
Electric consumption offices Electricity invoices for oper- Emissions factor: 337 g CO2e/
and data centre* ations electricity in offices kWh Nordisk elmix, 10 g CO2e/ where Advania has its own kWh hydroelectric power electricity contract, combined with data collected from prop- erty managers Offices with district heating* Data collection from property Energiföretagen Sverige, for- managers or standard for en- merly Svensk Fjärrvärme (Swe- ergy consumption per square denergy): Local environmental metre for facilities values 2017 or average value for district heating in Sweden 2017
at 66 g CO2e/kWh Offices with district cooling* Data collection from property Data from local district cooling managers suppliers or national average from Swedenergy. Scope III
Electric consumption office* Data collection from property Emissions factor: 337 g CO2e/
managers regarding electricity kWh Nordisk elmix, 10 g CO2e/ usage from the offices kWh hydroelectric power. Travel in private vehicles Reported business mileage in Emissions factor: Estimates for Sweden’s vehicle Swedish miles (10 km) with Well to wheel: fleet 2018
mileage allowance 143.9 gCO2e/km petrol (www.trafa.se) and con-
142.1 gCO2e/km diesel sumption for new vehicles in
63.6 gCO2e/km ethanol Sweden 2014 (www.trafikverket. ineko.se),
GWP for CO2, methane and nitrous oxide Business travel by air, train, Reported Swedish miles and Emissions factor: Well to wheel: NTM (Network for Transport taxi emissions from travel agencies Intercontinental flight: 110 Measures) and information on travel costs g/pkm IPCC from financial systems. Continental flight: 140 g/pkm Domestic flight: 226 g/pkm Train: 0.0021 g/pkm RFI: 2.7
* Energy consumption for the offices in Sundsvall, Uppsala and Västerås is not included in our reporting. These offices are purely co-working spaces that represent a negligible share of Advania’s total office area.
46 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 About this sustainability report
GRI Index
General standard information Degree of GRI standards Title Comments Page references compliance
Organisation profile
102-1 Organisation name 1 102-2 Primary activities, brands, products and/ 3 or services 102-3 Organisation’s headquarters 2 102-4 Location of operations 2 102-5 Ownership structure and company form 0 102-6 Markets where the organisation is active 2 102-7 Organisation size 2, 3, 23 102-8 Composition of the organisation’s work- 15 force 102-9 Organisation’s supply chain 38 102-10 Significant changes to the organisation 1 and its supply chain 102-11 Precautionary principle 6 102-12 External initiatives 6 102-13 Membership of organisations 6
Strategy and analysis 102-14 Statement from senior executives 4 Ethics and integrity 102-16 The organisation’s values, principles, 6, 18 standards and norms Management approach 102-18 Management structure 6 Stakeholder engagement 102-40 List of stakeholders 42 102-41 Collective agreements 8 102-42 Basis for identifying and selecting stake- 42 holders 102-43 Approach to stakeholder dialogue 42 102-44 Primary issues and areas highlighted in 42 stakeholder dialogue
Identified critical aspects and delimitations 102-45 Units included in this report 0 102-46 Process for identifying critical aspects 42 102-47 List of critical aspects 43 102-48 Revision of information from previous 20 reports 102-49 Significant changes from previous reports 0
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 47 About this sustainability report
General standard information Degree of GRI standards Title Comments Page references compliance Reporting profile 102-50 Reporting period 0
102-51 Date of last published report 0
102-52 Reporting cycle 0
102-53 Contact person for questions concerning 0 this report and its contents
102-54 Reporting level in accordance with GRI 0 Standards 102-55 GRI Index 47
102-56 Review process 0
48 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 About this sustainability report
Degree of GRI standards Title Comments Page references compliance GRI 200 Economic standards GRI 103: Management approach 2016 103-1 - 103-3 Management approach by 18, 3 aspect GRI 201: Economic Performance 2016 201-1 Economic value generated and 23 distributed GRI 205: Anti-corruption 2016 205-2 Communication and training in Anti-corruption training conduc- 13, 18 anti-corruption policies and proce- ted in 2019. Data will be reported dures in next year’s report. GRI 205: Anti-corruption 2016 205-3 Confirmed incidents of corrup- 18 tion and actions taken GRI 300 Environmental standards GRI 103: Management approach 2016 103-1-103-3 Management approach by 6, 19-21, 38-39 aspects GRI 305: Emissions 2016 305-1 Direct greenhouse gas emissions 0, 20, 46 (Scope 1) GRI 305: Emissions 2016 305-2 Indirect greenhouse gas emis- 0, 20, 46 sions (Scope 2) GRI 305: Emissions 2016 305-3 Other indirect greenhouse gas 0, 20, 46 emissions (Scope 3) GRI 308: Supplier environmental 308-2 Negative environmental impact 39 assessment 2016 in the supply chain and actions taken GRI 400 Social standards GRI 103: Management approach 2017 103-1-103-3 Management approach by 8, 10-11, 13-14, 25-26, aspect 28, 31, 35-36 GRI 403: Topic Specific Management 403-1-7 Topic specific management Exemptions: Due to the transi- Approach 2018 tion from G4 to GRI Standards, we do not have a system in place to meet these indicators. We will report according to these standards next year. GRI 401: Employment 2016 401-1 New employees and staff turno- 9 ver GRI 403: Occupational health and 403-8 Workers covered by an occupa- Exemptions: Due to the transi- safety 2018 tional health and safety management tion from G4 to GRI Standards, system. we do not have a system in place to meet these indicators. We will report according to these standards next year. GRI 404: Training and education 2016 404-1 Average hours of training per At present, only key figures for 13 year per employee our consultants are measured. GRI 404: Training and education 2016 404-2 Programme to develop employee 13 skills and transition programme GRI 405: Diversity and equal oppor- 405-1 Composition of the board and 16 tunity 2016 management and distribution of employees by personnel category GRI 405: Diversity and equal oppor- 405-2 Ratio of the basic salary and 16 tunity 2016 remuneration of women to men GRI 406: Non-discrimination 406-1 Incidents of discrimination and 14 corrective actions taken GRI 414: Supplier social assessment 414-2 Negative social impacts in the 39 2016 supply chain and actions taken GRI 418: Customer privacy 2016 418-1 Substantiated complaints con- 26 cerning breaches of customer privacy and losses of customer data Advania - Own KPI Sickness absence 12
Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018 | 49 50 | Advania Sweden - Sustainability Report 2018