Norske Backer
Sustainability report 2023
CONTENT About Norske Backer
3
Sustainability strategy
4
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
5
Our sustainability goals
6
Backer Switch
8
The Transparency Act
10
Our staff
12
Injuries, accidents and near misses
14
Courses and development
17
Science Based Target initiative
18
The three scopes and our CO2 emission
19
CO2 emissions 2023
21
Increased turnover and reduced emissions
22
Business growth and reduction of CO2
23
Consumption and waste
24
Action plan 2024
26
Implemented measures
28
Goals for 2024
32
ABOUT NORSKE BACKER Norske Backer is located in a special built production sight at SIVA Industrial area in Kongsvinger, where we have all of our production and operations. Our expertise is tailored electrical heating solutions specially adapted our customers needs. We have a general and high competence within production of electrical heating elements, and in addition we are certified for explosion-proof products for, among others, the oil and gas industry. Our relations with most customers are long term, and we are often complicit in our customers development work. We are highly focused on offering tailored solutions of high quality and long durability, optimized to cover our customers heating need. We also produce a selection of more typical standardized products for, among others, the plumbing and ventilation industry. Our employees are divided into the departments mechanical, production, sales and administration, and a sales department in Moss. Norske Backer is part of the Backer Group located in Sösdala in Sweden. The Backer Group is owned by Nibe Elements that is part of the Nibe Industry Group. Go to www. nibe.com for more information.
SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY Norske Backer actively work to contribute to reducing the climate footprint. We are taking sustainable development seriously and are concerned with taking care of the community and environment around us. Our products and services are based on using electricity as energy for heating, rather than fossil energy sources as for instance gas or coal. With other words, our products will leave a smaller climate footprint, as long as it is used renewable energy for electricity rather than fossil energy. We also mainly use electricity as heating in our premises. In our work on sustainable development, we have prepared a five-year sustainability strategy that are running from 2023 until 2028. We have also made a detailed measurement plan, where we have distributed the responsibility to various employes, and we have categorized our measures in the categories energy use, materials, suppliers, climate, and humans and community. We have already completed some of the measures, such as installing charging stations for electrical cars, gathering of deliveries, measures for recycling by establishing recycling stations in our factory, and raising awareness regarding energy use and saving. Read more at page 28. Our goal is to change our use of energy by installing solar panels and heat pumps, among other things. We are going to change our material consumption through better exploitation, reduction in plastic, paper, and cardboard, and use more recycled materials. We are going to look into our machinery and upgrade to better energy management. We are going to investigate into our suppliers work on sustainable development, and what options there are for more sustainable means of transport.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals The UN defines sustainable development as:
”a development that meets today’s needs without destroying the possibilities for future generations to have their needs met.” The UN has developed a common work plan for the entire world consisting of 17 goals and 169 interim goals. The goals give a global direction for countries, the business world, and civil society, and intends to extinct poverty, fight inequality and stop the climate changes by 2030. The Norwegian government adopted in 2022 a national action plan for the sustainable development goals.
Our sustainability goals To contribute to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals we have in the preparation of our strategy carefully reviewed our existing operations, and based on this developed several concrete goals and measures we are going to reach by 2028. We have connected our internal goals toward the UN’ Sustainable Development Goals, to be sure that we are actually contributing to the achievement of these goals. We have chosen four of the sustainability goals that we know we can contribute to. We have set some overarching goals we hope to achieve by 2028. These goals are further divided into a measurement plan (next side).
REDUCE OUR ENERGY CONSUMPTION •
By installing solar panels on our roof
•
By installing heat pumps
•
Expand our customer portfolio on Backer Switch
•
Reduce our water consumption
•
More surveillance of our machinery
REDUCTION OF OUR MATERIAL CONSUMPTION •
Better exploitation of materials
•
More digitalization – less paper
•
Reduce use of plastic
•
Use more recycled materials and get an overview of what we recycle
•
Reduce lead
INVESTIGATE OUR SUPPLIERS •
Investigate how our suppliers work on sustainability
•
Look into alternative and more sustainable means of transportation
•
Code of Conduct in conjunction with the Transparency Act
BACKER SWITCH From 2023 Norske Backer offers the service Backer Switch. The goal with the service is to help companies that want to go through the transition from using fossil energy sources to electricity in their heating solutions. As part of our climate strategy, we have developed a calculator, with the help from Variable, to be able to calculate how much our customers can reduce their CO2 emissions by doing this transition. The example below is from our pilot project, where we have calculated our customers potential CO2 reduction by changing one gas burner. This customer has several gas burners, and would therefore be able to reduce it’s emissions with quite a lot by changing their gas burners.
THE TRANSPARENCY ACT The Transparency Act came into force in July 2022. This law demands that we as a company conducts an investigation to find out if there is any actual, or risk of, negative consequences on human rights or decent working conditions in our own company, our supply chain or other business relationships. Further, we are also responsible for mapping out and determine how we will act if we discover any negative consequences. Read our statement here.
OUR STAFF OUR EMPLOYEES M en
W
omen
12
43
55 <30:
30 - 50:
50+
4
16
35
FULL-TIME AND PART-TIME POSITIONS ll-time Fu
rt-time a P
51
4
M en
m Wo en
M en
m Wo en
42
9
1
3
INJURIES, ACCIDENTS AND NEAR MISSES We have set some measures to avoid injuries, accidents and near misses that everyone are obliged to follow. We have thorough training and work descriptions. We have protective equipment that are being used of everyone in the production sight. We have a safety representative that are following up that all protective equipment is available and being used, and to secure that all our employees’ safety, health, and welfare are being taken care of. Our machinery and equipment are equipped with good safety equipment. In addition, we also have a rule that it is not allowed to work alone, and there must be at least two at work at the same time.
dents Acci
4 ar misses Ne
Injuries
1
2
COURSES AND DEVELOPMENT At Norske Backer we see the importance of knowledge and competence development for our employees. Therefore, we try to facilitate so that employees get the possibility to take relevant courses for their position and workday. Employees also get the opportunity to go on relevant conferences, to increase their insight and competence. We also try to give employees the opportunity for internal development in the company. We do this by, among other things, giving the employees the opportunity to roll in which position they have in the production when possible. We have created a sustainability team and council, in which we have representatives from every department. These representatives have volunteered to be part of the team / council and will in their role develop higher responsibility roles in our sustainability work. When possible, we also offer internal recruitment if we have the right person on the house for the position available. 35 persons carried out various courses during 2023. Some of the courses being directed by Norske Backer or Nibe Elements, and some external courses to obtain knowledge we could not obtain internally.
c
ved intern cei al e r
ment
13
lop ve de
s rse
35
loyees w ho
o has taken
p Em
s
wh
ou
Emplo ye e
We had 13 person who received internal development through our sustainability council/team, and by training in conjunction with internal recruitment.
SCIENCE BASED TARGET INITIATIVE The Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) is an initiative put into action by CDP, United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and Worldwide Fund for Nature. The initiatives mission is to help companies to find out how much and rapidly their CO2 emissions needs to be reduced with to avoid that the global warming exceeds the 1,5degree goal to much. SBTi therefore contributes with helping companies to set researchbased goals to reduce their CO2 emissions. As part of our work to reduce our climate footprint, we have committed to Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), which means that we have committed to reduce our emissions with 40% by 2030.
The three scopes and our CO2 emission In cooperation with Variable, we have worked out our climate accounting. Through our accounting, we were able to find our total emissions, as well as how this are distributed on scope 1, 2 and 3. We started with 2022 as our base year, and we will update the numbers every year. As a SME we are committed to report and reduce on scope 1 and 2 and have therefore chosen to include these numbers in this report. Briefly about the scopes: SCOPE 1 – DIRECT EMISSIONS This category concerns those emissions that are directly related to something the company owns itself and are those emissions that the company are directly responsible for. SCOPE 2 – ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION This scope comprises the emissions that are related to the company’s consumption of electricity and district heating. SCOPE 3 – INDIRECT EMISSIONS
n
tCO2e
i n 20 2
2
:
al e t o
120,02
d2 an
n scope 1 i s
missi o
This category includes all the company’s indirect emissions, except electricity and district heating that are covered by scope 2. In other words, scope 3 includes all the emissions related to goods and services that the company buys and sells.
T Scope 1
Scope 2
85,19
34,83
tCO2e
tCO2e
CO2 emissions 2023 We have finished our climate accounting for 2023 as well. We are very proud to announce that we have reduced our emissions from 2022 with all of 28% in just one year! Here we have included our CO2 emissions for scope 1 and 2, as these are the once we are obligated to report on and reduce, in accordance with our SBTi commitment.
n
i n 20 2
tCO2e
3
:
al e t o
85,97
d2 an
n scope 1 i s
missi o
For our own sake, we have also made an overview of our emissions in scope 3, and will try our best to reduce these as well.
T Scope 1
Scope 2
67,33
18,64
tCO2e
tCO2e
Reduction from 2022
28%
INCREASED TURNOVER AND REDUCED EMISSIONS As most other companies, we also strive to grow our business. Our goal is to increase our turnover by 10% every year. This is how our development has been the last six years:
Business growth and reduction of CO2 To ensure that we are still reducing our emissions while we expand our business, we have calculated how much emissions we have per million kroner earned. Again, we have used our total CO2 emission for scope 1 and 2. This is how we have calculated this: tCO2e / NOK millions
CONSUMPTION AND WASTE In Norske Backe we have increased our focus on consumption and how we can reduce this. To be able to measure how our measures and changes makes a difference on our consumption, we have made an overview of various factors.
n co
sumptio n 23 20
22
132986kg
Met al
nsumptio n co 20
Met al
In addition to reducing our consumption, we also have ambitions to be better at recycling to reduce our residual waste.
93697kg
53733kg
To
waste 20
l ta
waste 20 23
l ta
22
To
We reduced our metal consumption with all of 29% in 2023!
40060kg
We reduced our waste with a total of 25% in 2023. However, we have increased the share of residual waste form 0,19 in 2022 to 0,22 in 2023. This is something that we will continue to work with to reduce with various measures, for example with our recycling stations and making manuals for recycling.
ACTION PLAN 2024 For 2023 we prepared an action plan with concrete measures we were going to work on during the year. We have completed some of the measures, started on some of them and a few of the measures has been put on hold. All the measures in the plan are in line with our overall sustainability goals from our strategy. Several of the measures in the action plan ongoing measures we work continuously with, and therefore do not have an end point. The measures we did not complete in 2023 are being forwarded to 2024. On the next side is the updated plan for 2024.
MEASURES
Electricity consumption
Ongoing measures
Ongoing measure Secure good working conditions and environment Hire more female employees in administration and production Climate report and communication Reduction of transportations Recycling Investigate who can deliver recycled materials Use things out their lifespan Limit storage of files, e-mails, etc. Delete more of unnecessary documents and mails. Follow updates on digital machines Buy more adapted materials - less throw aways and stock Adapting every order (not make more than we need). Produce our own flanges if possible. Use left-over materials in alternative ways - make something new, sell or give away? Design department maps and consideres more recycled materals in the design and planning phase Turn down temperatures and not releasing the heat (close doors and windows etc.) Turn of everything that can be turned of during vacations and long weekends Turn of lights, computers and other power-drawing thing, as well as closing officedoor when you leave for the day Change lightbulbs to LED when they are changed
Electricity consumption Solar panels on the roof Energy efficiency improvement Upgrade machine park
Humans and society
Climate
Customers and suppliers
Materials
Materials Hire a purchasing manager - capasity to investigate new and existing suppliers Sort all materials in correct product group Return system or other alternatives for plate pallets Reduce plastic Reducing disposable plastic for wrapping with tarpaulins/blankets that can be reused Use more recycled plastic Digitalization and IT Reducing number of paper prints per order, gather more on each print Tablets in production instead of paper Recycled materials Receive used products Quality-assure waste and recycling Investigate alternative returnoptions Use more recycled materials, including paper and cardboard
Customers and suppliers Increase focus on price Calculate and include all addition cost regarding adaptation of materials on offers til customers Guidelines and demands for suppliers
Climate Decrease in use of gases - investigate better alternatives Sponsor or cooperation with the municipality Climate accounting
Human and society Developmentproject for clean water/water boiling in developing countries Employee interviews and serveys Attitude campaign internally - get everyone on board the sustainability work Organization diagnose
IMPLEMENTED MEASURES We have implemented some of the measures in our action plan during 2023, both small and big measures.
Here are some of the measures we have implemented:
WE HAVE REPLACED ALL DISPOSABLE CUPS One of the first measures we implemented in 2023 was to replace all disposable cups with ceramic and metal cups. We ordered up metal cups for all employees, and replaced the disposable cups in our common areas with ceramic cups.
WE HAVE CHANGED TO A MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY COPY PAPER We have replaced all our copy paper with paper from PaperWise. This copy paper is made by 100% agricultural waste, and produced on green energy.
WE HAVE HELD SUSTAINABILITY COURSES FOR OUR EMPLOYEES We believe that to be successful in the work on sustainability, all employees must be involved and engaged. Therefore, we held a basic, internal sustainability course for all of our employees.
WE HAVE ESTABLISHED A SUSTAINABILITY COUNCIL In conjunction with us believing success is achieved together, we have established a sustainability council consisting of employees from each department.
WE HAVE INSTALLED ELECTRIC CAR CHARGERS We have installed ten electric car chargers outside our factory. This is to motivate our employees to buy electrical cars at their next car change.
WE HAVE DECIDED TO INSTALL SOLAR PANELS It has been decided to install solar panels on our roof. We now await the best offer, delivery and finally installation.
WE HAVE GOT IN PLACE RECYCLING STATIONS After a request from our sustainability council, we have put in place recycling stations both in our production and mechanical departments. This to make recycling easier and seamlessly.
GOALS FOR 2024 We continue to work with the goals and the action plan we made for 2023. In addition we have added some new goals and measures that we are going to work more closely with in 2024. To reduce waste, we are looking for solutions for our plate pallets. We are investigating what possibilities we have, if we can reuse them, find a return solution on these or if we need another solution. We are going to work more on getting more employees on board the sustainability cruise. We are going to increase the internal engagement and motivate more employees to take active steps to contribute to our sustainability work. We are going to do this by for example making manuals for how we can improve. On goals and measures we are going to improve on – we are going to show how to! We are going to work on securing a best possible working and indoor environment. We are focusing more on pricing, to make sure purchasing costs are covered. We are securing that our rates are correct, both for us and our customers. We have a big potential for materials and having a better overview of these. Therefore, we are going to make a standard on how to put everything in the correct product group, which will give a better control and system. By getting this under control, we will be able to avoid buying materials we already have in storage.