Pillar 3

The business of the future

Read more about targets, outcomes and activities on our path to providing businesses of the future.

What is a business of the future?

The business of the future focuses on how Knowit can influence its surroundings through its business. Through its work with digitalization and innovation, Knowit is a solution partner with a high positive impact, not just in the climate area, but on the development of society as a whole. Knowit has a unique possibility to use its expertise in innovation and digitalization to provide clients and society with solutions to meet the largest global challenge of our time, climate change, which also creates new and unique business opportunities for Knowit. By integrating sustainability and climate in the Company’s business strategy, values, vision, and ultimately in the value offer to clients, Knowit can contribute to a positive impact on global sustainability.

Cutting-edge security solutions

Target: Protect client data.

Result: See picture. Managing large amounts of data in the cloud leads to increased complexity when it comes to security issues. Here, Knowit is at the cutting edge, and delivers both cloud services and security services regarding implementation and operation. The same holds true for AI applications, where technology and law are closely connected. Knowit delivers both the technical solution and support for managing security and privacy. The new regulations GDPR and PSD2, which caused large challenges for many of Knowit’s clients during 2019, have remained a large challenge for many of them. Security solutions at the cutting edge are also about helping clients develop solutions that increase security for individuals when it comes to e-commerce or payment solutions, for example.

Activities: Knowit’s management system for information security is based on ISO 27001. Within Knowit, we have one subsidiary in Sweden and one in Norway specialized in information security and offering consultancy services in this field. Resources and competence from these subsidiaries are used in Knowit’s internal work on information security. 

Empowered & Enabled

Target:

1) Implement a Key performance indicator (KPI) in Knowit that measures Empowered & Enabled. Learn more about this in the activities section. 

2) In 2023 a new KPI will be introduced to measure the proportion of employees who have undergone Knowit’s group-wide sustainability education.

Result:The image shows to what degree Knowit’s employees feel strengthened and fully equipped to contribute to a sustainable future in line with the “Makers of a sustainable future” concept in their roles, assignments, and fields of responsibility.

Activities:

1) To follow up on the ongoing work with strengthening and motivating Knowit employees to contribute to the sustainability work of their clients, the Company has implemented and developed Cybercom’s work from 2020 with a KPI called Empowered & Enabled. The term refers to if the Company’s employees feel strengthened and fully equipped to contribute to a sustainable future themselves, in line with the “Makers of a sustainable future” concept, in their roles, assignments, and fields of responsibility. Ultimately, the goal is to enable the UN SDGs.

2) Knowit has strived for several years to combine clients’ needs and requirements with minimizing the impact on the environment. For this reason, our employees have taken an internal environmental training course. After the merger with Cybercom in 2021, Knowit has created a group-wide sustainability education for all employees. The new sustainability education will be introduced during 2023.

The Grow program

Target: GROW is Knowit’s consultancy development program for women and non-binary consultants who want to accelerate their careers, either in leadership or as specialists. The program serves to create a learning environment where participants get important knowledge and tools to increase their professional and personal growth as young professionals. During the program, they build a platform for sustainable development, improved self-awareness, personal leadership, and valuable consultancy knowledge, such as presentation, sales, networking, and coaching. To support the participants in dealing with specific challenges that women and minorities encounter in their careers, one key aspect of the program centers on building knowledge about biases, diversity, and inclusion.

Activities: To enable more employees to get a chance to take part in GROW, we have had two GROW programs in parallel during 2022, one in English and one for Swedish and Norwegian employees. The participants have worked on internal cases in addition to their client assignments, to develop Knowit’s work on sustainability, employee satisfaction, and client satisfaction. The proposals will be presented to the Corporate Management Team in the spring of 2023 and will then be introduced into the organization, to strengthen Knowit’s ambition of being Makers of a Sustainable Future.

The proportion of net sales contributing to the UN SDGs

Target: By 2030, 80 percent of Knowit’s net sales shall contribute to at least one of the UN sustainable development goals where Knowit can make the largest difference. Among the 17 UN SDGs, Knowit has identified SDGs 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 16.

Result: See picture. Knowit has identified that 76 percent of net sales contribute to at least one of the UN SDGs where Knowit can make the largest difference.

Activities:

1) An example of how Knowit works to develop the business of the future is a new concept in cloud-based services that ensures that the cloud-based services that Knowit creates are measurable from a sustainability perspective. This concept is called Knowit Sustainable Cloud. It was launched in 2022 and also includes a Sustainability Calculation Toolkit, so any interested company can easily understand how sustainable their current solution is. More information on this can be found at knowit.eu/sustainablecloud.

2) To make an early assessment of the climate impact of planned digitalization projects, Knowit has in 2021 and 2022 worked to do inventory of and study existing frameworks and methods in climate impact descriptions and has now devised suggestions for methods and principles to calculate so-called avoided emissions. This can promote sustainable business and thus help Knowit’s clients make well-founded decisions. The methods can be used to evaluate both the positive and the negative climate impact of a digitalization project, with the goal of minimizing a client’s climate footprint.

3) In early 2022, Knowit established a Sustainability Task Force, a central unit focused on coordinating and developing the Company’s service offer related to sustainability solutions in digitalization. The Sustainability Task Force also works to continually highlight and clearly position Knowit’s overall service range related to sustainability consultancy and development projects focused on sustainability in relation to the most important target groups on Knowit’s markets.

The EU taxonomy

Target: Report in accordance with the EU taxonomy.

Result: See picture where the result as regards net sales, capital expenses (CapEx), and operating expenses (OpEx) is found in the table.

Activities: During 2022, Knowit has developed the method and toolkit devised in 2021 to measure and report in accordance with the EU taxonomy. For 2022, only the two environmental targets related to limiting climate change and adaptation to climate change are affected. To measure and report how large a share of the Company’s net sales that satisfy the requirements to be eligible in accordance with the EU taxonomy, information on active projects and their net sales during 2022 have been gathered from Knowit’s ERP system. Based on this information, project managers have in the next step been sent a questionnaire survey, to identify the projects that might be eligible.

What more do we do to promote sustainability?

We work actively to contribute to the UN Agenda 2030 and the development of society, with a particular focus on positive environmental and climate impact, and increased inclusion. Here you can read what we do and our achievements so far in the different areas of sustainability:

Sustainability reporting with reference to the GRI standards

Our sustainability work is gathered in Knowit's annual report. Here you will find in-depth information about how we work for a healthy workplace, increased gender equality, less carbon dioxide emissions – and much more. You can also contact us with your sustainability questions.

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Joakim Pilborg
Head of Sustainability
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Vision, strategy & sustainability targets

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