Peab’s social engagement is directed towards initiatives for educating youths, local community building projects, mentorship and sustainable sponsorship. Our core operations provide a good basis for contributing to the local communities we are active in.

Educating youths is an investment in future growth

Investing in young people is to invest in future growth. Peab’s commitment to the education of youths and our need for know-how in the future has been the basis for our independent upper secondary school, the Peab School. The founding idea of the school has been to create a high quality, modern upper secondary construction program with equal focus on creating a secure, aware citizen as on creating a skilled and employable worker. This is also stated in the school’s goal: Best School – Best Journey. The Peab School is a safe place and offers a good study and work environment for everyone there. We work actively with establishing values in daily school life and together preventing any form of discrimination or abusive conduct.

Each year there are about 430 students in the construction and civil engineering program at the five Peab Schools in Ängelholm, Malmö, Gothenburg, Solna and Upplands Väsby. Some initiatives at the Peab Schools in 2016:

• Language introduction for 100 immigrant youths at the Peab School in Gothenburg
• As a part of the project for more diversity and tolerance the students in the Peab School in Ängelholm took a study trip to the extermination camp Auschwitz
• Work with restoring buildings on the Utøya Island continued. For us this is an unmistakable stand for freedom of speech and democracy with the added advantage of allowing our students to practice their skills by building for Utøya’s future

Future plans for the Peab School include broadening the curriculum to contain, besides the construction and civil engineering program, programs for adult education and courses that leads to better integration.

In 2016 Peab was one of the main sponsors for EuroSkills held at the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre in Gothenburg. During three days about 500 young professionals from 28 countries competed in different professions. Over 65,000 people visited EuroSkills and employees that used to be students at the Peab School were there to inspire the next generation.

Internship and master theses – first step to a job

In order to make better use of the knowledge and experience of immigrants Peab signed a document of intention with the Swedish Public Employment Service. The ambition is to offer 100 immigrants internships during 2016-2018. The intention of the so-called 100 Club is to create a long-term and strategic collaboration to help immigrants get their bearings in Sweden. At the end of 2016 31 people had been offered employment or internship in Peab through the 100 Club.

Peab also accepts interns from industry-related programs as well as practicing professionals, and each year there are students at the university level who do their master thesis at Peab.

There are around 430 students annually in the construction and civil engineering program at the five Peab Schools located in Ängelholm, Malmö, Gothenburg, Solna and Upplands Väsby.

Local community building projects important in everyday life

Peab is a big employer with strong local roots. Whatever Peab constructs affects the labor market and people’s everyday lives in both big and small towns giving us the responsibility and the opportunity to contribute to the development of local societies. Norwegian Utøya is a good illustration of how Peab takes responsibility for the community, in this case by building up long-term partnerships that both the Peab School and the Norwegian Labor Party Youth League (AUF) learn from and where both parties are winners.

Intending to further strengthen our position Peab will in cooperation with the Peab School and an external player carry out at least one local community building project annually. During the autumn of 2017 Peab, the Peab School and the Mentor Sweden Foundation will carry out a project aimed at renovating a part of a high school in Malmö. The idea is that students in the Peab School will supervise younger high school students in renovating their own school. We have run similar projects twice before with very positive results for both individuals and the local community.

Mentorship spotlights the importance of good role models

Peab’s ten-year collaboration with the Mentor Foundation – a nonprofit organization working with mentorship for youths between 13 and 17 years of age, has contributed to our belief in the importance of good role models for youths. In 2016, 26 employees in Peab were mentors in some form. This collaboration provides, in addition to personal mentorship, professional guidance for high school students through the concept Job Mentor as well as seminars in parenting for our employees.

Another form of mentorship is the way so many of Peab’s employees are involved in supervising young people just beginning in the industry. The Peab School has founded a supervisor training course (approved by the National Agency for Education) aimed at strengthening the supervisors’ competence in, for instance, Peab’s core values, the work environment for minors, youth psychology, learning, motivation, conflict management and value systems. There are now about 1,000 trained supervisors among Peab’s employees.

“The feeling you get when you see all the committed and diligent students in the language introduction, so filled with positive thoughts about the future, is that this is really and truly community building.”

Christer Borkenhagen,
principal at the Peab School in Gothenburg

Peab’s ten-year collaboration with the Mentor Foundation has contributed to our belief in the importance of good role models for youths.

Sustainable sponsorship with a soft spot for youths

For many years Peab has been hugely involved in sponsoring, often on a local level. In 2016 Peab’s sponsoring policy was revised in order to clarify our commitment to young people, innovation and diversity. The common denominator for all our sponsorship is that it support our vision, our business plan and our sustainability goals. Everything we sponsor should also be connected to one or more of the following areas:

• Youths’ spare time: contribute to a meaningful spare time for young people on a broad basis
• Educating youths: help young people come together with skilled and committed teachers, mentors and counselors on their way into adulthood and a career
• Innovation and young entrepreneurship: help the young from every section of society develop their ability to think in new ways and be innovative
• Tomorrow’s diverse society: our ambition is to contribute to forming tomorrow’s diverse society together with other players in society

Peab’s sponsoring is rooted in the local community with the common denominator that all sponsored activities must generate some kind of return to society. The organization is formed around a central Group sponsorship council that meets once a month to decide on sponsorship requests and the return expected from the applicant. In 2016 we increased our sponsorship to sports for the young by 100 percent and social community building projects by 130 percent. Our goal for 2017 is just as ambitious. We will replace traditional sponsorship with modern, commitment-based sponsoring that has tangible results for the community. We engage ourselves in activities that create new engagement.

A voice in the public debate

It is our responsibility as community builders to be a voice in the public debate. The primary issues we get involved in concern the young and the challenge the industry faces in skills recruitment along with greater diversity and equality in the industry, which are all important areas to ensuring a long lasting and efficient construction sector that can meet the needs of the market. Another vital factor that can contribute to this is access to foreign construction companies and foreign workers. When Ylva Johansson, Minister for Employment, presented the government’s new regulations for workers posted in Sweden to the media in February 2017, she did it at one of Peab’s housing construction sites in Ulriksdal, Solna. Peab’s President and CEO Jesper Göransson, who participated in the meeting, welcomed both foreign construction companies and workers to Sweden but expressed the importance of unequivocal game rules that pertain to all the players active on the Swedish market. This makes a healthy, orderly industry possible.

In 2016 we increased our sponsorship to sports for the young by 100 percent and social community building projects by 130 percent.