HITSA has produced its first CSR report

After several years of sustainability work, HITSA has now produced its first CSR report. The report brings together figures and documentation relating to CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility – with the aim of providing a sound basis for further work on social and environmental sustainability at HITSA.

The report covers the entire group – HITSA in Denmark, Sweden and Latvia and the subsidiary Lampas in Denmark. It contains ESG key performance indicators, i.e. key figures within the Environmental, Social and Governance fields.

Focus on CO2 emissions, waste and social KPIs

Among other things, the report shows that the HITSA Group used less water, produced less waste and emitted less CO2 in 2021 compared to 2019. However, our electricity and gas consumption increased over the same period. We have a pay gap between men and women at almost all levels. 76% of the management and 100% of board members were men in 2021.

“We are publishing these figures because we attach great importance to transparency in our sustainability work. At the same time, the figures present a simplified picture of reality. So the next step will be to find out what lies behind the figures. That’s what we need the report for,” says Henrik Andersen, CEO of HITSA.

“We need to continue to reduce our waste and CO2 emissions. We must take social responsibility and help vulnerable people get into the labour market. We need to get more women into the male-dominated field of construction, and we need equal pay for equal work and equal skills. These are some of the issues we will be working on based on the report,” says Henrik.

Read the report here: Sustainability at HITSA.

From empty spreadsheet to CSR report

A lot of development work has gone into the report. For HITSA – a typical medium-sized Danish manufacturing company – the process of producing figures for the CSR report began with an empty spreadsheet.

The skills of working purposefully with sustainability have been built up over a number of years, and included the appointment of a sustainability manager. Josephine Husted Jespersen started as a trainee while studying at Design School Kolding and is now a permanent employee at the company. She has been the driving force behind the work, with help and advice from, among other sources, the environmental network Green Network and HITSA’s owner, Den Sociale Kapitalfond Invest.

“There were a lot of questions when we started. How do we produce valid figures for CO2 emissions, how can we be sure that one thing is more sustainable than another, and so on. But once you start, you quickly gain more knowledge and become more and more confident in what you are doing,” says Josephine.

“It can be a good idea to limit yourself. There’s a lot you want to work on, but it can become overwhelming. For example, we have chosen to produce a CSR report even though we don’t have figures for Scope 3 CO2 emissions. Instead, we have set a target for when we will have calculated Scope 3 as well,” she says.

Among the broader sustainability tasks at HITSA are welcoming trainees with social or health challenges, becoming ISO 14001 certified, and continuing to work on reducing CO2 emissions from energy sources and materials, among other things.