2 minute read
Greetings from the CEO
NAVIGATING OUR OPERATIONS IN A TURBULENT WORLD
2021 will be remembered as a year where one global crisis overlapped the other, throwing Europe straight from the pandemic to the dramatically rising geopolitical tension which escalated into the Russian attack on Ukraine.
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Throughout the pandemic, our key focus has been to safeguard the health of our employees and to keep our operations up and running. More or less simultaneously with the ‒ at least temporarily ‒ improved Covid-19 situation, the dramatic geopolitical situation as a result of the war in Ukraine has intensified our focus on ensuring our supply chain and our ability to continue to serve our customers in a market situation characterised by rapid changes and considerable uncertainties.
SAFETY REMAINS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY
Despite turbulent times, safety always remains our top priority, and we have continued our determined work towards a zero-accident workplace. However, our safety performance did not meet the set target level in 2021 and our accident frequency deteriorated from the record year of 2020. This has further encouraged us to continue the unwavering work under the ForSafe framework, with the motto that each day without accidents needs to be earned, everywhere and every day.
RISING IMPORTANCE OF RESILIENCE AND SECURITY OF SUPPLY
Resilience and security of supply are strongly connected to sustainable business, and their significance has intensified during the pandemic and increased even further because of the war in Ukraine. With growing populations in urban areas, and with even more pressure on the climate transition to proceed and, furthermore, with a healthier focus on the European security of supply related to critical raw materials and energy, our customers operating in the mining and infrastructure construction field in the Nordic countries will have a pivotal role to play.
As a key supplier and partner to these industries, we are an important part of this value chain and have therefore a significant responsibility to ensure the continuity of our business, especially during these turbulent times. We are committed to continue to act as a resilient and dependable partner in line with our vision “A Superior Partner for Demanding Operations”.
In addition, the interest in our Defence technology has increased during recent years as a result of the gradual deterioration of the geopolitical environment. We expect the growth to continue for many years to come.
HIGH AMBITION LEVEL TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
The new geopolitical and energy market situation requires Europe to accelerate the clean energy transition and increase Europe’s energy independence. In 2021, Forcit set out a strategic target of becoming carbon neutral in our operations by 2035. This is a commitment in line with our ambition to be the industry leader in sustainability, and in 2021 we started to detail a plan with concrete actions needed to reach this goal.
While writing, the surrounding turbulence fuelled by the war in Ukraine is very high, and it is clear that we are heading into another year of great uncertainty. Continuing our dedicated work to be the industry leader in sustainability is now more important than ever. We are committed to not only continuing to deliver our products and services throughout the crisis, but also to taking further steps in sustainable product and services development.
I hope you will find this year’s sustainability report insightful and interesting.
Joakim Westerlund CEO FORCIT Group
