Materiality
Unica regularly reflects on the key themes in the field of sustainable change. These reflections are viewed from the perspective of the various stakeholders, employees, suppliers and subcontractors, clients, government, sector organisations, knowledge centres and educational institutions, shareholders and partners.
Als part of the strategic Sustainability program, these stakeholders were intensively involved in a new materiality analysis in the spring of 2022, to discuss how Unica can structurally reinforce its process of sustainable development over the coming years. Backed up by an external analysis, the first step was to map out the key social themes. The stakeholders were then asked to identify the topics most important to them, and in respect of which they believe Unica delivers or could deliver real impact in creating sustainable value. These subjects form the basis for Unica’s sustainability strategy and will enjoy more focus in the company’s reporting in the near future. The stakeholders identified the following key themes for Unica:
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Renewable energy & CO2 reduction
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Innovation
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Circularity
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Health & Safety
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Development & long-term employability
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Digitalisation
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Ethics & integrity
These topics already had a focus within Unica to a greater or lesser extent and have now been translated into the core spearheads of Unica’s sustainability strategy: Energy & Climate, Circularity & Environment, People & Society and Innovation & Digitalisation. Ethics and Integrity form the fifth policy spearhead. In 2023 and beyond, Unica plans to focus specific attention on implementing this Sustainability Framework and the related programmes.
In addition to this central policy, sustainable entrepreneurship is put into practice at numerous other locations within Unica. An internal sustainable business network was established, to which dozens of enthusiastic contributors have now signed up, with the aim of bringing together all the relevant knowledge, creative ideas and implementation capacity. The organisation of a Sustainability Award is one of the initiatives that this network put into practice in 2022. The competition for this award generated several excellent ideas for further improving the sustainability of a number of specific aspects of the company’s business operations.