Sustainability & ESG

Putting good IT into practice for our customers also means making a more positive mark on society.

To us, collaboration is essential in almost every aspect of driving business, but especially so when it comes to finding new ways of contributing to a more sustainable world. We cooperate with customers, partners, peers, and suppliers about how we can contribute and create tangible results.

In addition to a general approach to proper and fair business conduct, we support the principles of responsible business in the UN Global Compact and report on our progress annually to the UN. You can find all reports here

In NNIT, we are further committed to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and we have chosen to focus on goals 4, 5, 9 and 12. Please find more information below and in our Sustainability reports

Together, the UN Global Compact and the SDGs form the framework for our corporate responsibility effort. Please find a detailed description of this in our Sustainability policy.

Visit our policy site to find further policies on how we work in accordance with these principles and aims.

Environmental, Social and Governance Principles (ESG)

We conduct annual audits of our internal and external impacts, which allows us to continuously improve how we operate and leave a more positive mark on our surroundings.

Our annual reporting focuses on elements such as share of renewable energy, employee health and turnover, and gender diversity in management and boards. Through these reports, we aim to improve conditions for NNIT's internal and external environments, and show our progress in doing so. 

As a benchmark, Sustainalytics, a Morningstar company, places NNIT in the top 100 global companies in the IT industry, with a low-level risk rating of 17.1 in 2020, 13.3 in 2021 and 16.2 in 2022.

NNIT ESG Rating Distribtion

We report on ESG information to Nasdaq and have been certified as Nasdaq ESG Transparency Partner based on our disclosure of our 2021 information towards the Nasdaq ESG Portal.

UN's Sustainable Development Goals

We are committed to

SDG 4: Quality Education
SDG 5: Gender equality
SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure
SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production.

We are committed to these four SDGs because this is where we see the clearest link to our competencies, but also because we see how this work not only contributes to reaching the goals for the world society set by the UN, it also gets us closer to reaching our business goals.

The SDG framework has enabled us to focus our efforts and led to a range of activities supporting our four chosen targets. Please find all activities and detailed descriptions in our corporate responsibility reports.

To us, committing to SDG 4: Quality Education means that we can help educate children and young people to better navigate in a digital world, while hopefully also give ourselves a greater pool of IT talents to chose from, when looking to hire new colleagues in the future.

To us, committing to SDG 5: Gender Equality means contributing to a more diverse environment in the IT industry and promote diverse leadership in general, while also increasing diversity among our own, which we believe in turn gives us better prerequisites for success.

 

Listen to our podcast Women in Tech here.

To us, committing to SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure means continuous development towards a more efficient IT industry and society. This benefits the improvement of the IT industry itself, but with our competencies and efforts within this framework, we are also able to support our customers’ sustainability journey by providing innovative solutions and ensuring efficiency in IT processes.

To us, committing to SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production means lowering our CO2 emissions and consumption in general across our organization and advising our customers on how IT can help them lower their consumption as well.

 

SDG Milestones

NNIT is setting Science Based Targets

NNIT has in 2022 taken the first important steps to set emission reduction targets that are in line with what climate science says is necessary if we are to align with the most ambitious aim of the Paris Agreement and limit global warming to 1.5°C.

In NNIT we pride ourselves on making a mark both in business and society and that we are conscience-driven in everything we do. Therefore, ensuring that we are part of the solution and not the problem in terms of climate changes are important to us.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is a global body enabling businesses to set ambitious emissions reductions targets in line with the latest climate science. It is focused on accelerating companies across the world to halve emissions before 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions before 2050.

In 2022, NNIT committed to setting both short-term and long-term science-based targets and submit these to the SBTi within 24 months from our commitment date on August 11, 2022.

This means that NNIT is committed to setting short-term targets that meet the criteria and recommendations of the SBTi. Furthermore, we have committed to set a long-term target to reach net-zero value chain greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050 and in line with the SBTi Net-Zero Standard. By net-zero the SBTi means a state in which our company has no impact on the climate resulting from our GHG emissions.

In the two years from our date of commitment we are therefore working on identifying and collecting data on the sources of our emissions throughout our value chain in order to set ambitious and realizable emissions reduction targets. This work already began in 2020 and enabled us to deliver NNIT's first greenhouse gas emissions report covering scope 1, 2 and 3 for fiscal year 2021.

 

Our Footprint

NNIT Scopes

From 2020 and onwards, we are monitoring our energy and carbon footprint for NNIT. The carbon footprint gives a general overview of NNIT's total greenhouse gas emissions.

As COVID-19 has impacted the way we work – e.g. by reducing travel activity significantly – we chose 2019 as our baseline year for our footprint monitoring. Currently, our emissions are calculated for NNIT offices only (excl. NNIT Group companies).

We analyze our emissions based on the international standard the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative (GHG Protocol). The GHG Protocol divides companies’ direct, indirect, and value chain emissions into three scopes, and covers all emissions from regular business operations.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative (GHG protocol) is the most widely used standard for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, developed by World Resources Institute (WRI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

The reporting considers the following greenhouse gases, all converted into CO2 equivalents: CO2, CH4 (methane), N2O (laughing gas), SF6, HFCs and PFCs.

Measuring the carbon footprint of all NNIT's indirect emissions is a comprehensive investigative task, and thus identifying and collecting relevant data for additional areas are still ongoing.

Our annual carbon emissions

Aligned with our values of being open and honest, we encourage transparency and therefore present our annual emissions based on both a locations-method and a market-based method of measuring emissions respectively:

NNIT Scopes Graphs

Please visit our latest Sustainability Report to gain a detailed explanation of our carbon emissions, its sources and our future prospects.

The GHG Protocol distinguishes between two methods of reporting scope 2 related emissions. 

The locations-based reporting method of measuring greenhouse gas emissions is based on the three different scopes of the GHG protocol and calculated using external data of these locations' general energy-mix. This method therefore illustrates the actual energy-mix used by NNIT. 

The data sources used are: World Resource Institute (WRI/US), International Energy Agency (IEA/OECD), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC/UK) and EcoInvent LCI Database.

However, NNIT purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) or guarantees of origin (GoOs) for all locations in Denmark, including our two data centers. NNIT is thus guaranteed that the kWh electricity used over the course of a year has been produced as renewable energy and used in the electricity grid. See our renewable energy certificate from 2021 below. 

This choice is reflected in the market-based method. The market-based reporting method takes into account NNIT's choice to purchase RECs/GoOs for all Danish locations, and omits emissions related to these. The remaining electricity not covered by RECs/GoOs are in the market-based reporting method calculated using a residual mix that is based on the remaining electricity production after all RECs/GoOs are sold. This method therefore illustrates the energy-mix NNIT has secured in the grid. 

NNIT has bought RECs/GoOs for all electricity consumption in our Danish locations since 2015.

To compensate for the emissions of our electricity consumption outside Denmark, which we have not yet been able to convert to renewable energy sources, we have purchased climate credits through the Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park corresponding to 577 tCO2e. This covers our emissions from our market-based global electricity consumption in 2020, which was 453 tCO2e in 2021. Please find latest certificate below. 

Through IngenCO2 we run a certified CO2 neutral website.