Community builder with a big responsibility
Peab works daily to improve everyday life for people where they live it in the Nordic region. We do this by building everything from homes, schools, retirement homes and hospitals to bridges, roads and other infrastructure.
Working sustainably is a strategic matter for Peab that should be completely integrated into our operations. Each and every employee should work sustainably in their role based on our core values, business concept, mission, strategic targets and Code of Conduct. Our work is formed by internal and external collaboration in the three areas social, environment and economic where we have identified our material sustainable aspects. We summarize these in our external and internal targets within the framework for our four strategic targets.
We take responsibility, whether by contributing to more climate-adapted material use, healthy competition or safe and inclusive workplaces.
Our prioritized sustainable aspects are established by Peab’s Board and executive management, integrated into Group and business area business plans and support our work in product development and technical solutions. As a big local employer in the Nordic region it is crucial for us to have, through cooperation and dialogue, good insight into local community needs. This knowledge then helps us to be useful. We take responsibility, whether by contributing to more climate-adapted material use, healthy competition or safe and inclusive workplaces. As one of the largest Nordic community builders we have decided to be leaders in social responsibility in our industry. It’s a commitment that comes with obligations.
Stakeholders guide us
Peab’s priorities and actions in the area of sustainability are greatly influenced by the expectations and demands expressed by stakeholders. An ongoing stakeholder dialogue keeps us aware of what issues are most important to them. These discussions take place in both informal meetings with customers, suppliers, employees and other stakeholders and in more structured contexts such as supplier audits, meetings with politicians and other decision-makers, investor dialogues and seminars at colleges. The accumulated result from these dialogues forms the basis of our materiality analysis and sustainability work priorities.
Our definition of sustainability
To Peab sustainability means responsible entrepreneurship that is ethical and long lastingly sustainable socially, environmentally and economically.
Locally produced community building
Our four business areas that collaborate locally give us better control over the supply chain. Our 15,000 employees ensure that we as far as possible use local resources in the form of our own employees, our own input goods and subcontractors. This together with our engagement in the community and integrated climate and environmental work forms the foundation of what we call locally produced community building.
Peab’s sustainability reporting
Peab reports our sustainability work according to the reporting standard Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Report follows GRI Standards, level Core. The scope of the Sustainability Report is presented in the accompanying Sustainability appendix, which can be found at peab.inpublix.com/2021, where the GRI index and sustainability data are presented. For this year’s reporting we engaged a third party to do a pre-assurance of our sustainability processes and reporting procedures with the intention of conducting a limited assurance of Peab’s sustainability reporting as of 2022. With the adoption of the new business plan for 2021-2023 we revised our prioritized sustainability aspects. We also continued to work on ensuring the quality of the data in all sustainability aspects, which we will proceed with in 2022.
Peab’s stakeholders
| Stakeholder | Expectations of Peab | Dialogue examples |
| Shareholders | Responsible ethical entrepreneurship, long-term financial value development that creates annual dividends, ongoing risk mapping and risk management, awareness and measures to reduce climate and environmental impact, community involvement through, for example, integration programs and contributions to job experience and free time activities for youths, responsibility throughout the value chain. | AGM, analyst meetings, surveys from share funds, investor meetings, national and international evaluations. |
| Employees; existing and potential | Responsible ethical entrepreneurship, good work environment and high degree of safety, skills development, good leadership, equal opportunity and diversity, good work and employment conditions, awareness and measures to reduce climate and environmental impact, community involvement through, for example, integration programs and contributions to job experience for youths, responsibility throughout the value chain. | Daily dialogue, employee surveys, work environment evaluations, work environment dialogues, student surveys, workplace meetings, union collaboration, internal training, incident follow-ups, management meetings, goal and developmental discussions, external surveys concerning employer brand, collaboration with students and the education system. |
| Customers | Responsible ethical entrepreneurship, professional businessmanship, competence, resource capacity, quality, availability, experience and expertise exchanges, good work and employment conditions, certifications, ongoing risk mapping and risk management, awareness and measures to reduce climate and environmental impact, community involvement through, for example, integration programs, internships and contributions to job experience for youths, responsibility throughout the value chain. | Meetings in person, daily contacts, networks, partnership projects, dialogue meetings, customer meetings, fairs, customer surveys, questionnaires from customers, procurements and audits. |
| Suppliers | Responsible ethical entrepreneurship, professional businessmanship, ongoing risk mapping and risk management, awareness and measures to reduce climate and environmental impact (preferably with the supplier), responsibility throughout the value chain. | Procurements, supplier evaluations, meetings in person, daily contacts, supplier meetings, supplier audits, sustainability dialogues and partnership projects. |
| Local community | Contributions to local community development, cost-efficient construction and housing in different price categories, ongoing risk mapping and risk management, awareness and measures to reduce climate and environmental impact, care for the environmental locally, community involvement through, for example, integration programs and contributions to job experience for youths, sponsoring local youth activities, responsibility throughout the value chain. | Receiving visits, partnership projects, information meetings, networks, contacts with county boards/municipalities, environmental reports, vision work, mentoring, sponsor projects, citizen and resident dialogues. |
Updated prioritized sustainability areas
Peab’s prioritized sustainability areas form a unit where the parts affect each other. With the adoption of the new business plan for 2021-2023 at the beginning of the year we revised the prioritized sustainability aspects we identified as the most relevant to manage, monitor and report. We categorize these under social, environment and economic and ensure that they are integrated into our operations and steering through our four strategic targets with financial and non-financial targets.
Social
Peab is a big employer responsible for fostering safe and inclusive workplaces. Naturally our business also affects people in the production chain. As a major local community builder we take our social responsibility seriously.
Sustainability aspects
- The work environment and safety culture
- Equality, diversity and equal opportunity
- Education and development for the young
Environment
The construction and civil engineering industry has a significant environmental and climate impact. Peab affects the environment and climate through our own operations and through the cooperation with actors in the value chain like suppliers and customers.
Sustainability aspects
- Climate impact
- Resource consumption
- Environmentally and health hazardous products
Economic
Peab takes responsibility for safe and sound conditions for its own business and the rest of the construction and civil engineering industry and the stakeholders affected in the supply chain.
Sustainability aspects
- Quality ensured supply chain
- Ethics and anti-corruption
Respect for human rights is fundamental
Respect for human rights is fundamental for Peab’s operations and the entire value chain. This is explicitly expressed in our Code of Conduct but the risk for violations of human rights still exists in every aspect of our business, internally and externally, particularly in the supply chain. Therefore this is a key issue for us and it encompasses several of our material sustainability aspects. Read more in the section on risks on pages 62-65.
Steering Peab’s sustainability work
Steering Peab’s sustainability work is all about identifying, assessing and managing risks and opportunities, working systematically with continual improvements and setting specific targets within our prioritized sustainability aspects. Parallel to central regulations steering is managed as far as possible close to production on a local level but is monitored through our overarching Group targets. In order to further strengthen our local engagement, in 2021 we clarified the integrated responsibility for our sustainability work in our four business areas through, among other things, external and internal non-financial targets.
Peab’s Board has given Peab’s executive management the overriding responsibility for steering and monitoring the integration of a sustainable work method into its business. Peab’s business area managers, who all report to the CEO, are responsible together with the COO for running our sustainability work as an integrated part of operations. They have a number of specialists to aid them. Peab works continuously to raise competence levels in every part of our organization around matters like work environment, environment, leadership, ethics and anti-corruption.
Central regulations and a management system for steering
The central regulations and management system for steering in Peab comply with international conventions and national laws. Our fundamental, internal steering document, Peab’s Code of Conduct, is based on the UN Global Compact principles that include the precautionary principle, UN’s human rights and ILO’s core conventions. Peab signed Global Compact 2012 and the Annual and Sustainability Report make up the Group’s Communication on Progress, the annual report to Global Compact. In accordance with the decision by Peab’s President and CEO the company will continue to follow Global Compact.
The President and CEO has ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the Code of Conduct is followed and communicated. This responsibility then goes down the chain of command through management. Every employee is in turn responsible for taking in the information and following the Code of Conduct. The Group’s purchasing function is responsible for checking that suppliers follow the dictates of the Code of Conduct. Peab has a whistleblower function for anyone, employees or external stakeholders, who wishes to draw attention to deviations from the Code of Conduct or other irregularities in the business. The function, which is available on our website and intranet, is handled by Peab’s Ethical Council and whistleblowers can be anonymous.
Peab’s Code of Conduct is complemented by four policies; the Environmental Policy, Quality Policy, Information Security Policy and Work Environment Policy. These are then supplemented by a number of guidelines and supportive documents.
More measures to achieve the global goals
Peab’s management regularly analyzes operations based on the UN’s 17 global goals and 169 targets. The most recent one was in 2020. For the period 2021-2023 six of the goals were deemed extra prioritized since they are either areas that hold significant potential risk or areas where Peab has the best chance of promoting sustainable development.
Goal 5 which concerns equal opportunity, is important to Peab since we, like the rest of the construction and civil engineering industry, still have a long way to go to achieve equal gender distribution. In 2021 executive management carried out a comprehensive equality analysis and set up quantitative targets for equality to boost progress in this area.
Goal 8 includes work conditions and is highly topical since it comprises several of Peab’s prioritized sustainability aspects such as a safe work environment, good conditions in our supply chain and the path for youths into the labor force. There is also a great deal of risk associated with this area. One measure we took during the year was to further develop supply chain checks to ensure ethical and sustainable production conditions.
Goal 9 that concerns sustainable industry, innovations and infrastructure is relevant in part because of its connection to our industrial and civil engineering operations and our investment in sustainable innovation. During the year we continued to, for example, develop our ECO-products and invested in Sweden’s first electrical crane on caterpillar tracks.
Goal 11 which concerns building sustainable cities and communities that are safe and accessible to all in many ways sums up the core of Peab. During the year we, among other things, reinforced our position as Sweden’s largest school builder. We have also continued to work on our concept for youth’s development, Peab Life.
Goal 12 concerning sustainable consumption and production is prioritized particularly because of its connection to our environmental target on resource efficiency. During 2021 we initiated several new projects and collaborations to increase reuse.
Goal 13, fighting climate change, is a crucial global issue and Peab, as a major Nordic community builder, has a big responsibility in this. During the year we took several important steps towards climate neutrality through innovation and investments as well as a new partnership concerning fossil free steel.