Global Compact: Progress in 2020

Munters reported progress on the Global Compact’s ten principles of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption in 2020.

Last week, Munters submitted its Global Compact Communication on Progress report to the United Nations. This is the second year it has submitted a report since joining the global corporate sustainability initiative in 2018.

“Even though 2020 was a challenging year due to COVID-19, we continued to work on updating our strategy ensuring we work towards a more sustainable business,” says Klas Forsström, CEO at Munters. “That said, our ambition is to set even clearer targets for several areas that relates to sustainability and the business strategy in 2021.”

Progress we've made in each area in 2020:

Human rights

• 100 per cent of its suppliers signed the Code of Conduct.
• A course on “Human Trafficking Awareness & Reporting Obligations” was given to Human Resources (HR), Procurement and Strategic Operations.
• The whistleblower policy was updated and training was rolled out to HR.

Labour

• The Safety Observation Program (STOP) was rolled out. Thanks to the program, the Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) was reduce from 2.7 in 2019 to 1.2 in 2020.
• The Gender Bias Recruitment training was launched for managers and HR.

Environment

• 4.1 per cent of total net sales were invested in research and development to create more energy efficient climate control systems.
• Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Munters' manufacturing facilities were measured. Quarterly reporting of GHG emissions is now included as part of the facilities’ ongoing reporting.
• A global mapping of GHG emissions for all Munters vehicles was completed. As part of this, a global car policy was launched with a goal of reducing emissions by 30 per cent by 2023 from today’s level.

Anti-corruption

• An Ethics Advisory Board was created to manage various ethical questions. The forum consists of people from Group Management.
• A Global Ethics Committee was also established. The committee consists of representatives from Finance, Strategic Operations and HR. Its role is to investigate questions and issues that may arise in this area.

For the full report, click here.