With operations in more than 30 countries around the world, business ethics is of utmost importance to Indutrade. In order to grow and develop, we must ensure that we have good business ethics and that there is full compliance at all levels with our requirements on anti-corruption. This ensures that we can retain the confidence that our stakeholders and the rest of the world have in Indutrade. The Code of Conduct contains guidelines for business ethics and anti-corruption.

Acquisition is a natural component of Indutrade's operations and it is fundamental to our strategy for growth. All the companies that Indutrade acquire are evaluated from a sustainability perspective.

Our sustainability governance efforts have been adapted to our decentralised organisation and they primarily occur via the Boards of Directors of our companies. We comprise of more than 200 companies, in a wide variety of industries and markets. Accordingly, each of them faces different types of challenges and opportunities. It means that we cannot have Groupwide targets and focus areas for sustainability. Instead, they must be tailored to each company. However, from a long-term ownership perspective, our overall ambitions for sustainability are the same for all of our subsidiaries.

The CEO and senior executives of each subsidiary have operational responsibility for their own sustainability efforts. Each Board of Directors is ultimately responsible for ensuring that their company complies with its own, and Indutrade's, guidelines and policies.

Indutrade regards its employees, their well-being and expertise as its most important assets. Ensuring that each employee is thriving in the organisation is therefore one of our most important sustainability issues. We do this via competence development, health & safety and our working conditions.

Competence development

One of the most important preconditions for maintaining a long-term approach in our own and our subsidiaries' operations is to ensure we have the right expertise within the Group. In our subsidiaries this is largely a matter of making full use of the expertise that already exists internally. We do this both through continuing education for key individuals and by sharing knowledge and experiences within the Group.

Our companies often work as problem-solvers for customers, which requires that the employees have a high level of business and technical expertise. Offering development opportunities for our employees is a way for us to be an attractive employer and thereby retain and attract key talent within the Group.

Through Indutrade Academy, we offer a leadership program that provides training in areas such as leadership and sales. These trainings have been tailored to our specific views on business acumen. Our aim is to ensure that our managers and employees are better equipped to meet business challenges and customer expectations. It also facilitates knowledge sharing and networking within the Group.

Our digital communications platform Indutrade Portal aims to promote and facilitate knowledge sharing and networking within the Group.

Health and Safety

To ensure a safe and sound workplace for all employees in the Indutrade Group, health and safety is one of the areas that we address specifically in the Code of Conduct. Most of the subsidiaries have operations involving lighter workshop and assembly work, which entails a relatively low risk for injury. Nevertheless, the Code of Conduct emphasises that our companies shall work proactively to prevent obvious physical risks, and monitor safety work and the employees' work situation. Subsidiaries' investments in improved production environments are something that we prioritise, support and encourage. It creates the best conditions for a safe workplace with fewer risks and repetitive movements at the same time that it boosts productivity and creates conditions for the subsidiaries' growth.

Working conditions

We want to promote lasting, inclusive and productive employment with decent working conditions for everyone. Although many of our subsidiaries do not have own productions, the products they sell might be manufactured in countries where the working conditions can vary quite substantially. Access to national, regional and global markets is critical to our companies' ability to fully develop their potential.

Employees of the Group are recruited and promoted exclusively based on their work qualifications and without consideration of their gender, transgender identity or expression, ethnic origin, religion or other faith, functional disability, sexual preference, age or other categories protected by law.

Indutrade's environmental impact is primarily indirect and it occurs via our subsidiaries. Accordingly, most of our environmental initiatives occur in the subsidiaries. The ambition is to continually reduce environmental impact via systematic improvement efforts. Most of our subsidiaries are engaged in environmental work, such as more efficient use of energy and natural resources, implementing systems for reuse and recycling of materials and energy, along with preventing/limiting pollution.

For example, being ISO-certified is often a prerequisite for customers and suppliers to even begin working with our companies. More than 80% of our companies believe that they are working in their operations on continuously reducing their environmental impact and actively helping their customers reduce theirs.

Through active board work we support the managing directors of our subsidiaries in their efforts to meet the growing demands and expectations for responsible and sustainable solutions.

The components, systems and services that our companies market, sell and produce often require technical and industrial know-how in order to be beneficial for the customer. By having good knowledge about customers' systems and processes, combined with a high level of technical expertise, we aim to improve the efficiency of our customers' operations and offer solutions that reduce environmental impacts and enhance efficiency.