Responsible business in a responsible way. This overall principle guides Vaisala's operations, but what exactly is responsible business? What does it entail?
Vaisala's answer to that question is on the pages of this report. But to put it in a nutshell, a responsible company conducts its business with integrity and fairness and in a way that is based on sustainable and transparent operations. Sounds simple? It can be. For us, doing responsible business in a responsible way is a corporate-wide priority, and our corporate responsibility program is driven with the same focus and rigor as all our operations.
Last summer I participated in the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Summit. In this historic event, over 1,000 global leaders from both private businesses and public sector organizations came together to collaborate on finding ways to build a new era of sustainability. The summit clearly showed that responsible business is increasingly becoming a mainstream phenomenon. Companies from all different sectors are seeing the benefits of sustainable operations and products, valuing human rights and fair labor conditions, preventing corruption and establishing responsible supply chains. The spirit and buy-in among us corporate leaders is clearly there, but needless to say, it will take a lot of work at the grass root level for the new era of sustainability we discussed at the summit to emerge.
Vaisala has been a signatory of the Global Compact Principles since 2008, and we continue to endorse the initiative. In a world where going beyond the legal norm in order to have a positive impact on our environment is still more an exception than the rule, a forum for driving ethical and environmental leadership is clearly needed.
2010 – Year of Challenges
Last year was challenging for Vaisala. Impacted by the global economic downturn, we struggled with profitability and component shortage issues, and had to take a hard look at our internal operations and cost structure. The result was an efficiency program to improve our profitability and competitiveness while maintaining high and consistent product quality.
We reviewed the entire cost base, including personnel cost, use of professional services, sourcing and travel costs. After negotiating with the employee representatives, we reduced our personnel in Finland, the US and UK. The efficiency program showed results toward the end of the year, as our profitability clearly improved. Having to resort to personnel reductions doesn't change the fact that we value our people highly and know without a doubt that the skills and knowledge of the employees are the prerequisite for Vaisala's success.
Developments in Environmental Sustainability
Vaisala has strived to systematically improve its environmental performance for more than a decade now, and we took several steps towards realizing our long-term goals again last year. For example, our Head Office in Vantaa, Finland was granted the WWF Green Office mark after successfully implementing a special Green Office environmental system.
Our North American headquarters in Boulder, Colorado installed 560 square meters of solar panels on the building's roof that produced more than 87,000 kWh of electricity during the first six months. At the same time, conference rooms and offices were equipped with motion sensors to automatically turn off lights when people leave the room.
Environmental aspects were also the driving force behind the design of our new office building in Vantaa, Finland, the construction of which was finished at the end of the year. The aim was to make the new building ecological and as energy self-sufficient as possible by utilizing geothermal power for heating and cooling and solar power for own energy production. Energy and water consumption was minimized with the use of state-of-the-art building automation technology.
With over 700 square meters of photovoltaic panels on the roof of the new building, Vaisala is now one of the largest solar power producers in Finland. Ever since the initial planning phase, the building was designed to comply with the requirements of the international green building standard Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), which assesses a building's environmental effects in the areas of e.g. energy efficiency, choice of building materials and water consumption.
Investors Increasingly Aware of ESG and Ethical Criteria
Investors have recently had an expanded interest in transparency when it comes to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues. Initiatives such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), the Global Compact, the Carbon Disclosure Project as well as a multitude of sustainability indices are building awareness of responsible business practices and driving forward a change in perspectives from short-term gains to long-term growth.
Last year we joined thousands of organizations from across the world's major economies as we measured and disclosed Vaisala's greenhouse gas emissions for the first time within the framework of the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Including electricity and heat consumption at our largest facilities, all business flights and company owned and leased cars, our carbon footprint in 2009 was roughly 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents.
This may not be that much for a global 1,400 person organization, but we are looking forward to seeing the number decrease. Thanks to last year's developments, it is likely to amount to a whole lot less in 2010 and 2011. More importantly, we recognize opportunities for us to excel in a business environment that will require new solutions for reducing emissions. Many of our solutions provide customers with means of improving efficiency in their operations, which often results to reduced emissions in the process.
Science-based Innovation Guarantees Continuity
Since its foundation, Vaisala has been an active member of the science community and especially devoted to supporting academic research. We have a long history of contributions to universities, scholarship programs, research partnerships and awards. Again last year, we took part in many successful research projects that enabled new research and innovations, some of which we talk about in this report. For us, innovation is what keeps us going and creating new solutions that benefit our customers is the rule we live by.
I hope that this report illustrates that what we do in terms of corporate responsibility is not just words on paper or something we do to look good. Globally operating companies are in a unique position to practice what we preach – putting long-term sustainability on the top of the corporate agenda should be a priority for businesses everywhere.
Kjell Forsén
President and CEO
Vaisala Oyj