Finnish design and production guarantee a transparent and socially responsible supply chain and thus the best possible quality. This also creates jobs in Finland; in addition to our own employees, we employ a number of other design, production, and installation professionals.
We are constantly aware of the emissions caused by our production, and we keep track of our direct and indirect carbon footprint. We compensate our annual carbon footprint by planting carbon sinks in Finland that bind around 230 tonnes of CO2 emissions. At the same time, we provide our clients with solutions that reduce energy consumption and waste. Our appliances have a long lifespan and low energy consumption. Their recycling rate is high, and we encourage our clients to either recycle themselves or to return the equipment to us for recycling. Our recycling is done by a reliable and transparent local partner.
EWQ participates in Taimiteko, a project by Finland’s 4-H organisation, that employs young people and aims to plant trees to create a new carbon sink. By planting new forests in the bogs abandoned by Vapo around Finland, we compensate our carbon footprint every year. We have been carbon negative in our operations since 2021.
The trees we plant absorb around 230 tonnes of CO2, covering more than our annual carbon footprint.
We employ young people living in sparsely populated areas to help them find employment and enable networking with companies.
We provide our customers with solutions that reduce their environmental impact, either directly or indirectly. Our services and products reduce our customers’ paper and energy consumption, reduce waste, and improve inventory management and the workload associated with e-commerce collection, resulting in a substantial reduction in our customers’ carbon footprint while reducing costs. Our EWQ Zone service allows you to use your equipment fleet up to the end of its life cycle. The service can be used as the fleet is upgraded and vice versa; when we introduce new or upgraded technology, it is always applicable to the existing fleet.
We have developed a Climate Roadmap, which defines our environmental and climate-related activities and targets for 2020-2030. We started calculating the CO2 emissions of our operations in 2020 and at the same time offsetting our direct and indirect carbon footprint. In 2023, we moved to a more comprehensive GHG Protocol emissions calculation, which has enabled us to better identify our major sources of emissions. Between 2025 and 2029, we will calculate our product-specific carbon footprint and carbon handprint. Our goal is to reduce our emissions across the entire value chain to a level where no further reduction measures are possible by 2035.
Our goal is to measure the GHG emissions of our products throughout their life cycle (Cradle-to-gate and Cradle-to-grave) by 2029. The calculation is on-going.
By 2029, we will calculate the positive climate impacts of ourservices. Calculating our carbon handprint is an essential part of our carbon neutrality goal.
In all our activities, our customers always come first. Our solutions ensure a relaxing, queue-free service and make keeping price information up to date as easy as possible, increasing the trust of end customers as shelf prices always match prices at checkout. We always treat our clients equally, and communication is our top priority. Our ticketing system ensures that each client receives an answer within the agreed response time, which we monitor on a monthly basis.
High corporate responsibility is always a sign of a good work environment. As a socially responsible employer, we have succeeded in engaging our employees, which is reflected in the low turnover of our staff. This has increased the company’s internal expertise and created a trustful community. We ensure the well-being of our employees with various concrete activities, such as trainings and recreational days, and invest in the comfort of the work environment. Each of our employees has accepted and acts in accordance with the EWQ Code of Conduct.
Social responsibility is the most important criterion for the selection of our subcontractors. We always ascertain our subcontractors’ corporate responsibility and require companies to agree to our EWQ Supplier Code of Conduct before any collaboration. We want to continue to operate at a high domestic level, which is why we favour domestic partners. If we cannot select a domestic partner, we always carry out a risk assessment and require that the factory in the country of origin be audited.
Due to the nature of our business, we process a large amount of data on a daily basis. We do not take any risks; our processing of data is always reliable, and its protection is ensured with world-class methods. Our employees are committed to complying with data protection principles. Our use of data is also transparent, and data is managed only by professionals. On sunny days, the electricity used by the server modules of our data centre supplier in Finland is generated almost entirely by solar panels installed in the data centre, in addition to renewable electricity backed by guarantees of origin. The data centres are highly energy efficient and have a minimal PUE.
Social responsibility is an endless improvement process. It is the driving force behind everything we do and cannot be acquired ready-made. We are constantly working on improving responsibility with concrete acts, such as:
Membership of the FIBS network (Finnish Business & Society) and development of corporate responsibility together with more than three hundred strongly invested companies.
We are among the first companies to participate in the Planet Company project, the aim of which is to highlight concrete acts of responsibility.
The world’s leading organization for assessing corporate sustainability, EcoVadis, has awarded EWQ the highest-level Platinum certification. The Platinum rating is granted globally to only the top one percent of over 130,000 evaluated companies. Achieving the highest Platinum level is a milestone in our company’s strategic efforts towards a more sustainable future.
What is EcoVadis?
EcoVadis is a leading sustainability and corporate social responsibility rating company, having assessed over 130,000 companies across 175 countries and more than 220 industries. Its assessment methodology aims to measure the quality of companies’ sustainability management systems across three areas: policies, actions, and results. Additionally, EcoVadis has defined 21 sustainability criteria, which are divided into four categories: environment, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.
Höyläämötie 11 A, 4th floor
FI-00380 Helsinki
David Bagares gata 7
SE-111 38 Stockholm
Sisjö Kullegata 8
SE-42132 Gothenburg
Höyläämötie 11 A, 4th floor
FI-00380 Helsinki
Bryggargatan 8b
SE-111 21 Stockholm
