Sustainability Agenda

Sustainability is at the core of our strategy and business. Our vision is to be the frontrunner in nonwovens innovation and sustainability. Sustainability is an integral part of all our operations.

Sustainability Agenda 2020–2025

Suominen’s sustainability agenda crystallizes the sustainability themes and targets for the strategy period 2020–2025. The agenda was approved by the Board of Directors, and progress in different areas is regularly monitored. The agenda focuses on four themes, People and safety, Sustainable nonwovens, Low impact manufacturing and Corporate citizenship.

Sustainability agenda 2020–2025

Our sustainability targets and key performance indicators

INDICATOR	TARGET	RESULT
Lost time accident	0	6 in 2023
Employee engagement index	73%	66% in 2023

INDICATOR	TARGET	RESULT
Number of sustainable product launches¹	Over 10 per year	12 in 2023
Sales of sustainable products	50% increase in sales compared to the base year 2019	79% increase in 2023 compared to the base year 2019

INDICATOR	TARGET	RESULT
Coverage of renewed Code of Conduct	100% of existing employees and new hires	94% of employees trained by the end of 2023
Supplier assessment	Raw material suppliers assessed against supplier code (based on risk assessment)	Process established

INDICATOR	TARGET	RESULT
Energy consumption (GJ/t of product)	20% reduction compared to the base year 2019²	No progress made in 2023
Process waste to landfill (kg/t of product)	20% reduction compared to the base year 2019	No progress made in 2023
Water consumption (m3/t of product)	20% reduction compared to the base year 2019	0.7% reduction compared to the base year 2019
Greenhouse gas emissions (t/t of product)	20% reduction compared to the base year 2019³	14.9% reduction compared to the base year 2019³

Sustainable product launches include new sustainable product launches, re-launches and concepts related to sustainable products.
Energy consumption figure for 2019 was restated.
Target is set for Scope 1 and 2 emissions (emissions from our own operations and purchased energy generation). The greenhouse gas figures for the base year 2019 were restated in the 2023 report due to a minor error in total emissions calculation.

Materiality

Sustainability is an integral part of our strategy and thus, we strive to continuously develop it and work towards being a frontrunner in sustainable nonwovens. As a part of this, we believe that it is vital to understand our stakeholders’ perceptions of our impacts, risks, and opportunities in relation to sustainability to serve the whole value chain in the best possible way. Identification of the most material aspects of sustainability helps us to prioritize our work and efforts in this area.

In 2023, Suominen started the process to update its materiality to take into consideration all our impacts, risks, and opportunities throughout our value chain (double materiality). The process includes internal workshops with key experts and management, and stakeholder engagement. In internal workshops, topics relevant to the business of Suominen in all parts of the value chain were listed and the negative and positive impacts of these identified. Actual and potential impacts were identified based on internal expertise and documentation, including Suominen’s overall risk assessment, HSE assessment and performance results and stakeholder surveys. The topics were grouped based on evaluating the severity and likelihood, which is based on the operating environment and risks identified by the Executive Team. Stakeholder engagement included a survey for stakeholders – such as customers, employees, institutional investors, suppliers, industry associations and owners – and interviews with key stakeholders. The work is to be finalized during the beginning of 2024 and will aid in the development of our sustainability agenda and guide the future actions to be taken.

The previous materiality assessment was conducted in 2019, which is the basis for the current Sustainability Agenda 2020–2025. The agenda is based on the six most material sustainability topics for Suominen: eco-friendly products, health and safety, energy efficiency, waste prevention, financial stability, and employee engagement.

Suominen and UN Sustainable Development Goals

We have identified three SDG’s which covers the areas where we can make the biggest contribution and our sustainability agenda guides our work towards these goals.

Sustainability reporting

Suominen publishes annually its sustainability report as part of Annual Report. The purpose is to share information for our key stakeholders about Suominen’s sustainability approach and progress in sustainability.

Financial targets

Read more about Suominen's financial targets set by the Board of Directors for the strategy period 2020-2025.