The energy company Gasum promotes sustainable development in line with its strategy. Gasum has published its key corporate responsibility achievements in 2019. The company improved its customers’ access to cleaner energy in road and maritime transport, industry and energy production. Gasum’s safety and security culture underwent strong development, which resulted in many steps forward.
Gasum is taking determined steps to promote sustainable development in accordance with the principles of circular economy and by providing cleaner energy solutions in the Nordic countries. The company’s responsibility work is steered by its Corporate Responsibility Program, which is summed up in six themes and related objectives. The themes derived from the company’s strategy and materiality analysis concerning corporate responsibility form the basis of Gasum’s Corporate Responsibility Program: safety and security, climate change mitigation, circular economy, access to energy, people, and sustainable business. Gasum monitors progress made towards the objectives continuously in all of its operating countries – Finland, Sweden and Norway. Gasum is committed to working also towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations and supports the SDGs.
“A responsible approach is an inseparable part of our day-to-day operations and decision-making. The clean energy offered by us is highly significant for our customers’ responsibility work. In 2019, we took major steps towards our objectives in many areas. We updated the objectives of our Corporate Responsibility Program to reflect our changing operating environment and redefined the ethics and compliance framework guiding our responsible business,” says Sustainability Manager Elina Saarivuori from Gasum.
Key responsibility achievements in 2019
Gasum’s focus in social responsibility, including safety and security as well as people, was on promoting safety and security work, developing the company’s operating culture and deploying the Gasum-wide leadership principles. The rate of injuries halved from the previous year, and the number of corrective and preventive safety measures increased. The company aimed at an employee absence rate of below 2%, which was achieved as the rate was 1.5%. Gasum line managers’ leadership skills received good scores in a 360-degree feedback process.
As regards environmental responsibility, Gasum improved the availability of gas in the transport sector and enabled strong growth in gas-fueled vehicles. The company partnered with several heavy-duty transport operators and enabled emission cuts for industry and retail. Gasum also increased the accessibility of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at sea with extended geographical coverage and more than 1,000 deliveries for various vessels. Greenhouse gas emission savings from Gasum’s sustainability-certified biogas totaled 111,000 tonnes, which equals removing more than 40,000 passenger cars from roads. Gasum also obtained 6.5 TW of Guarantees of Origin for hydropower, bioenergy and wind power for its customers. The company continued to use 100% renewable electricity in all of its operations. Gasum reached its annual energy saving targets.
Gasum strengthened growth in the biogas market by making investment decisions to build new biogas plants in Lohja, Finland, and Nymölla, Sweden. In addition, investments were made in increasing the operational efficiency of biogas plants as well as biogas processing capacity, and a biogas plant in Kouvola, Finland, was acquired. The company launched new partnerships to increase the availability of biogas. In addition, Gasum developed partnerships for recycled nutrients and advanced circular economy concepts in R&D projects.
Economic responsibility at Gasum is related to access to energy and responsible business. Gasum met its financial performance targets in these areas. The company set up a Green Funding Framework to promote the company’s value in the transition towards a low-carbon future. Gasum expanded the Nordic gas filling station network by 13 new stations. Accessibility and increased efficiency for customers at sea was also increased, and Gasum completed its 200th ship-to-ship bunkering. Gasum redefined its ethics and compliance framework that oversees the implementation of responsible business. The company also identified its critical suppliers and continued to assess them. The supply certainty of natural gas, LNG and biogas was at a good level throughout the year, and there were no delivery disturbances in gas supply.
