Environmental responsibility

Solutions, products and services, offered by Ericsson Nikola Tesla Group have a positive impact on business sustainability and the quality of people’s lives and the environment.

All activities of the ENT Group are harmonized with the national legal regulations related to environmental protection and with the relevant international standards. The company implements the Quality, environmental and occupational health and safety policy and, among other things, has a Certificate for Environmental Management System according to ISO 14001. In our solutions we use Ericsson environmentally friendly products to control the flow of materials and energy and enable customers to reduce its impact on the environment. At the same time, we work closely with our supply chain and perform systematic monitoring in order to fully control our solutions and processes from an environmental point of view.

We continuously conduct training and develop awareness and increase the motivation of our employees to monitor topics in the field of environmental protection and rational energy management. We actively participate in various initiatives aimed at environmental protection and our experts participate in the process of improving regulations and practices, thus giving our full social contribution to the care for environmental protection. The company systematically works on optimizing the consumption of all types of energy, about which we regularly inform the public in our Annual Report.

Based on its activity and way of working, the company has a positive impact on the environment and significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions generated in other industries. With our e-solutions (e-health, e-call, e-cadastre and land registers…) we enable the development of a low-carbon economy and transform modern industry and society. Technological leadership and an innovative approach to work allow us to use numerous and diverse applications in our own business process, which also protects the environment. We believe that such a comprehensive approach is a prerequisite for economic competitiveness and also improves and accelerates business processes while saving time, money and natural resources. Therefore, we will continue to actively inform all internal and external participants and stakeholders about our work on environmental protection.

As a socially responsible entrepreneur, Ericsson Nikola Tesla dedicates special attention to sustainable business, which includes setting concrete goals in regard to climate and environmental protection, and acting accordingly. Therefore, looking at our own impact on climate and the environment, and systemic optimization of spending all kinds of energy and other natural resources is an important part of the company culture and strategy.

Fighting climate change with energy efficiency

Two and a half years after signing the agreement on grants from the European Structural and Investment Funds, within the “Competitiveness and Cohesion” Operational Program 2014-2020, a new period of sustainable business started, characterized by annual energy savings of more than 4.6 million kWh, and at the same time a reduction of CO2 emissionsby almost 1400 tonnes. For comparison, this is a reduction equivalent to savings that would be obtained by building a solar power plant with the surface of 8 soccer fields.

The project was implemented through a successful cooperation with the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development, the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund and the Central Financeand Contracting Agency for the EU projects and programs.

The plan’s quantitative basis was made within the LIFE Program, focused on the contribution to the protection and improvement of quality of the environment, and reduction of the climate change impact through projects that will contribute to the transition to a low-carbon economy. Ericsson Nikola Tesla joined Life Clim’Foot project, and as the only large private company in Croatia, calculated its annual carbon footprint, and prepared a corresponding action plan to reduce it. A comprehensive and very complex calculation according to Bilan Carbone® model included a precise collection of data on numerous activities and own impacts on the environment. After several months of work, the results showed that in the company’s total annual CO2 emission, 47 percent are energy sources. This has quantitatively proven the belief of Management Board and Executive Management that in order to efficiently reduce carbon footprint, we must primarily focus on improvement of thermo technical plants with the corresponding infrastructure and physical characteristics of buildings.

In brief, the calculation confirmed that responsibility towards the environment, in addition to a “green” portfolio that includes solutions such as the ones in e-Health, Joint Information System of Land Registry and Cadaster or smart cities, must also encompass the improvement of energy efficiency from its own production processes. As the company has been for years continuously applying innovative measures of energy efficiency, precisely because the high energy consumption is a necessary prerequisite of production of the center for communication equipment and networks, whose market responsibility is continuously increasing, a comprehensive energy efficiency of a part of production resources presented itself as an optimum solution to reduce carbon footprint.

A team of 600 participants worked on the energy consolidation of production site, the construction of the main heat exchange station with the corresponding substation and the main cooling station and outdoor connecting pipelines, as well as on the renewal of building envelopes of the two largest buildings, setting up the new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems and an installation of a significantly more efficient lighting system. Despite all the unexpected challenges, they managed to finish this large and a very complex project regarding coordination within the agreed deadlines. During all implementation phases, the employees worked in full capacity and provided support to customers in conditions that were much harder than in the previous years and were able to achieve, with the EU grants and a great own investment, an important long-term objective.

A special challenge of this energy efficiency was the primary request regarding business continuity, and especially in the main production site that operates 24/7. Most works were invisible to the public eye, however, it had an important impact on our work, demanding a complex and a precisely coordinated adjustment of production process and several transfers of large amounts of equipment and employees, without any interruption in operations.

By successfully implementing this project, one of the largest energy efficiency projects in Croatia was completed, co-financed by the EU funds. Since the beginning of 2021, we have been working with significantly improved technological capacities regarding energy. Thus, we have once again confirmed our strategic direction of reducing carbon footprint in line with the European Green Deal and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the responsibility towards the environment and the community in which we operate.

Through this concrete contribution and our own example, we have demonstrated that participating in the creation of public policies for calculation, and afterwards a consistent implementation of activities to reduce carbon footprint, despite all the organizational and financial efforts that accompany this process, is the only rational response to the challenge of sustainable life and business.

ICT - support to sustainability in all sectors

Environmental pollution and climate change have been recognized as one of the biggest global threats, and to stop them, all economy sectors need to act. Therefore, a smart application of ICT (which by itself does not cause significant pollution, but can reduce the negative impact of almost all areas of operations), is also the key for sustainable future.

ICT solutions have much greater potential to increase sustainability by replacing physical products with digital products and services. Digitalization represents an enormous opportunity to increase productivity and sustainability, and ICT solutions, such as 5G, IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual and Augmented reality, and Cloud implementation will be the most important ones to achieve a greater level of sustainability and profitability. In this regard, 2020 has by the virtue of decision, and primarily Force Majeure, truly became a turning point.

Despite the exponential growth of data transfer, for several years, the ICT industry’s carbon footprint has been at the level of 1.4 percent out of the total global emissions, and the companies from this industry are globally also the biggest buyers of renewable electricity. These are often companies that influence others by their example, by setting demanding climate goals based on science and technology. They do not only reduce the emissions caused by their products and through cooperation with others, but also invest directly or indirectly in renewable energy sources and reduction of carbon footprint from their own activities. Ericsson Nikola Tesla Group stands out in both areas.

Technologies, primarily 5G, are becoming the foundation of industry and society transformation that will enable an environmentally sustainable future. Until now, each previous mobile network generation has been increasing energy consumption and carbon emission, but 5G, as an energy most efficient standard ever developed, interrupted this trend in mobile sector. In addition, instead of suppressing activities with great emissions, Ericsson Nikola Tesla and other companies in ICT industry, have been creating solutions that will efficiently replace many of these activities, primarily in energy supply, industry, transport, tourism, and agriculture.

We have also continued the projects related to e-Environment, primarily related to water protection, but also other natural resources, and the company’s experts are also working on developing solutions for tourism and agriculture.

We expect that modern mobile communication networks, IoT and data science will significantly impact the transport industry as we know it today and bring a range of “green” solutions in the intelligent transport systems and logistics domain.

Therefore, solutions for smart cities and e-transport are one of the segments that especially contribute to decarbonization in a modern, urban world.

Environmental requirements for business partners

Ethics, responsibility, and sustainability are embedded in the foundations of business of Ericsson Nikola Tesla Group, and we strictly adhere to them in all our activities, and we expect our business partners to do the same. The norms defined by Code of Conduct for Business Partners, in addition to a general overview of our expectations and demands in key areas, such as business ethics, anti-corruption, employee rights and human rights, OHS, also imply responsibility towards the environment and fighting climate change. We are aware that the reduction of negative impact on the environment, created as a result of our business activities, implies examining the entire business chain, starting from us to business partners and suppliers specifying demands for business partners in terms of environmental protection is prescribed by a special document that defines requirements regarding products and services, production, transportation, energy consumption, water management, as well as requirements related to waste reduction and circular approach.

In line with the corresponding annual plans, we pay special attention to targeted evaluations (audits) of our suppliers and our own organizational units, including the evaluation according to ISO 14001. In this way, we actively evaluate our impact on the environment and contribute to increasing the overall quality of our management system. In line with the findings, when and if necessary, we provide education and/or suggest improvements, and in extreme cases, take radical corrective measures. We particularly insist on programs of improvement, which encompass plans and specific objectives of reducing the impact on the environment. We try to additionally improve our knowledge and experience, and transfer it to our suppliers/contractors, business partners and the wider community.

Importance of education

We are aware that education is an important integral part of our responsibility towards the environment: on individual level, Ericsson Nikola Tesla Group level, as well as towards the public. We foster quality cooperationwith government bodies, specialized companies and institutions, as well as media and other interested parties. Through consultations and exchange of opinions with them, we try to contribute to shaping positive changes.

We have been continuously encouraging education focused on responsible relation towards the environment among our employees, suppliers and partners, readers of our company’s publications and social media followers. Moreover, we motivate them to rationally use natural resources.

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Contact:

etk.company@ericsson.com