The Importance of Integrity and Transparency
On March 20, it was arranged IDG Skåne Business Hub Sweden (as Vati of Sweden is part of) BEING TRANSPARENT: How to Shape the Future of Corporate Culture and a large audience was attracted to Medicon Village to listen. There Boris Matijas spoke from Agencies de verifica, Martin Löfgren from Aluflour, Johan Flodin from the Nyah group and Charlotte Hedenborn from Mitigater. The companies testified that both a good corporate culture and sustainability work are central to them and that transparency is a key factor for success.
- The companies that attended the event have succeeded in their sustainability work and are a great source of inspiration, says Helena Wiktor, Sustainability & Operations Manager at Vati of Sweden. In our turbulent world, transparency and values are important. We need to strengthen ourselves to face this external world. It is not that alone is strong but it is a matter of crouching arms and building ecosystems of people who want the same thing.
IDG stands for Inner Development Goals and is a movement that, among other things, talks about what abilities are needed in humans to accelerate sustainability. Vati of Sweden was previously involved and organized five meetings around these abilities. The event now held was simultaneously a relaunch of the business and also meant that what was IDG Malmö Business Hub will be renamed IDG Skåne Business Hub Sweden.
It's a special time right now with a troubled world — is it extra difficult to work with sustainability issues right now?
- It can be, especially if you work with the tougher sustainability issues, continues Helena Wiktor. It is incredibly important to work on this so as not to go into hopelessness and abandonment. In these times, it is urgent to unite and build a culture of resilience and transparency to strengthen us as individuals and leaders and make our organizations feel better.
Vati of Sweden started 2019 as a way to meet sustainability challenges, updated by the global goals of Agenda 2030 launched a few years earlier. Vati of Sweden was one of the first organisations to develop training on how to help companies work with their global goals using the SDG compass framework. The goal is for companies to be able to implement the goals in both their sustainability and business strategies. This is what Vati of Sweden does through, for example, online trainings, consultations and workshops. In 2021, the complementary activity Verify Agency started, which can audit companies' sustainability work using an ISO standard (ISO 26000)
- We help companies on a journey based on their degree of maturity in terms of sustainability, says Helena Wiktor. We find out if they have previous sustainability certifications, if they have mapped their value chain, if they know their impact and are aware of their stakeholders and risks. We also look at whether they have made an action plan and linked sustainable activities to their regular business activities. The goal is to integrate sustainability throughout the company so that all individuals become aware of the goal. We also want to spread the knowledge that it doesn't have to be so expensive to do this.
Since its inception, Vati of Sweden has helped over 200 customers get started. Vati has five employees but works with a large network. Most of the customers are small- or medium-sized companies in many industries, ranging from Science Parks and Life Science companies to companies in packaging, transportation and real estate. Most of them are from Sweden but there are also customers in other countries, such as Hungary, Norway and Spain. Customers go through a training pyramid where students are also trained to make a survey of companies — which at the same time gives the companies a kick-start in their sustainability work.
What is it that most people think is good that they have been helped with?
- That's the HOW. Many are happy that they were helped to get started, that they were helped to set up their processes and that they started at the right end. Some organisations come here and want help with key indicators and KPIs for the sustainability report, but we usually want to start by looking at their strategy and the type of business they have and structure based on that. Then you see what is important and how to prioritize.
In connection with the fact that there are more EU regulations regarding sustainability, Vati of Sweden is also being contacted by more and more companies. There are also cases when expected regulations have not come to an end, but the companies that have started the work have nevertheless chosen to continue.
- That they want to continue on a voluntary basis is a nice rating, I think. They have got an interest in contributing and a realisation that we can help them. Many people also see a business opportunity in this, and it is often the business benefit we try to emphasize, concludes Helena Wiktor.
Vati of Sweden are members of Future by Lund.