SUSTAINABILITY:
Systematic work for sustainable corporation
SUSTAINABILITY:
long-term work for the benefit of society
Edita Group helps its customers communicate more effectively and provides them with reliable printed and digital information.
The Group consists of three business areas: Edita Prima specializes in technology and production services for customer communication of companies and organizations. Edita Legal Information provides legal information experts with the latest legal professional information in the form of online services, training and books. Edita Learning provides high-quality learning materials and training in the field of teaching and education to support learning and teaching.
We can rightly say that our companies influence our society in many ways.
Key figures
Edita Group’s sustainability strategy was updated and approved at the end of 2022. We strive to have a positive impact on society and run our business in a responsible manner. Delivering value to our stakeholders and maintaining their trust is at the core of our operations. We strive to work closely with our customers and want to offer them solutions that contribute to their business growth and increase their customer satisfaction.
Edita Group’s sustainability activities correspond to the areas of environmental and social responsibility and good governance, which form the basis of our corporate social responsibility (ESG) efforts. Edita Group also strives for profitable growth that supports sustainable business. This includes financial responsibility and good corporate citizenship.
The development of sustainability is guided by the company’s policies, guidelines and commitments, as well as guidelines defined by third parties that are central to the company’s business. We assess the risks related to sustainability as part of overall risk management. Sustainability risk management includes an assessment of financial and any reputational risks.
In our operations, we comply with legal requirements and act transparently. We have conducted systematic sustainability work since the early 1990s.
Our Code of Business Ethics guides the activities of each employee of Edita Group with all of our stakeholders, which include employees, customers, partners and shareholders. We also expect our partners to comply with our Code of Business Ethics.
Finland is one of the most successful countries in the world by many indicators. This would not have been possible if not for two things. Our legal system is the bedrock of the functional society. Education has made it possible for Finland to become one of the most successful countries in the world.
Edita Learning and Edita Legal Information are involved in building both of these. Our goal is to make excellent education even better by providing the best learning materials for teachers and students. Our legal information services provide up-to-date legal information to professionals and citizens so that society and business can thrive.
Edita Prima helps companies and organizations communicate better with their stakeholders. Communication is important to people, businesses and society. Communication also plays an essential role in improving social well-being and promoting environmental awareness.
Creating value for our stakeholders and maintaining trust is at the core of our operations.
Environmental responsibility:
Towards carbon neutrality
In our operations, the biggest environmental impacts are caused by the production and logistics of printed products. We reduce our own and our customers’ environmental impact by investing in sustainability in our operations and services. We strive to select domestic environmentally certified suppliers and minimize the environmental impact of logistics.
In our production, we carry out systematic environmental work and focus on the continuous improvement of the level of environmental protection. One important step in reducing our carbon footprint has been the transition to electricity from renewable sources. Besides improving energy efficiency, we avoid unnecessary travel and prefer video meetings when it is the most efficient way to do business.
We strive for carbon neutrality in accordance with the objectives set for state-owned companies.
Social responsibility:
Inspiring and inclusive leadership
We are committed to building a growth culture by providing employees with learning opportunities, nurturing their talent, as well as supporting inspirational leadership and fair rewards for achievement. We believe that a working community based on trust and transparency, in which individuals from different backgrounds and experiences work together, is essential for the success of our company. Promoting equality is an important goal for us. We also promote respectful and inclusive leadership.
We encourage our employees to work together to strengthen our culture and our ability to meet customer needs. Our guiding principles are an integral part of our day-to-day work, and they guide our operations and develop our culture.
Employee well-being and family friendliness are important values to us. We measure the well-being of employees and develop our operations in cooperation with the personnel in order to provide a good working community. Our concept of the family is diverse and aims to take into account our employees’ individual situations and work/family balance. We also want to influence the future of young people in society by offering traineeship and work opportunities for young professionals.
Good governance:
Transparent and honest operations
Edita Group adheres to the principles of good governance. Our goal is to be honest, transparent and responsible in everything we do. We comply with statutory requirements and honestly and transparently communicate about our business.
Our Code of Business Ethics guides the activities of every Edita Group employee with all of our stakeholders: employees, customers, partners and shareholders. We also expect our partners to comply with our Code of Business Ethics. We do not tolerate bribery or corruption in any form.
We respect all internationally recognized human rights in everything we do and expect the same from our suppliers and partners. The Group’s internal whistleblowing channel aligned with the EU directive facilitates anonymous reporting of irregularities related to the Group or its business areas.
Financial responsibility:
Profitable growth reliably
We strive to run our business profitably and provide our stakeholders with reliable and high-quality products and services, which helps to maintain long-term partnerships. We operate efficiently with the goal of long-term profitability and growth. Effective internal control ensures the reliability of information, and regular risk monitoring allows us to respond to risks in a timely manner and manage them.
Environmental responsibility:
Reducing carbon footprint
We reduce our own and customers’ environmental impact by investing in sustainable operations and services.
In our production activities the environmental work is systematic and focused on continuous improvement. One important step in reducing our carbon footprint has been the transition to electricity from renewable sources. We have centralized our operations and increased our use of premises in and efficient way. This has led to increased energy efficiency and improved management of the office practices.
Social responsibility:
Culture of growth and collaboration
We are committed to building a growth culture providing employees with learning opportunities, nurturing their talent, offering inspirational leadership and fair rewards for achievement. We believe that individuals with diverse backgrounds and experience, working together in an environment built on trust and transparency, are essential to our success.
We encourage employees to collaborate with each other to strengthen our culture and ability to meet customer needs. Our Guiding Principles are an essential part of our daily work, and they guide our behaviour and develop our culture towards a desired ethical direction
Good governance:
Transparent operation
Edita Group follows principles of good corporate governance. Our goal is to show integrity, transparency and accountability in all our operations. We comply with legal requirements and are honest and transparent when communicating about our business.
Financial responsibility:
Profitable growth
We aim to conduct our business in a profitable way and provide our stakeholders with reliable and high-quality products and services in order to sustain long-term relationships with them. We run our business efficiently aiming for long-term profitability and growth. Efficient internal control safeguards reliable information, and regular risk monitoring enables us to react and manage risks in time.
Maintaining the trust of stakeholders
Maintaining the trust of stakeholders
Edita Group wants to operate in a way that helps us maintain the trust of our stakeholders. We always seek to work ethically, responsibly and in line with our Guiding Principles with our stakeholders.
Employees
Edita Group aims to be an attractive and responsible employer. We are committed to promote
a good dynamic workplace and to create interesting career and development opportunities for our people.
We appreciate employees that demonstrate self-leadership, accountability and collaboration and believe that good leadership and a strong organizational culture are the cornerstones for employee engagement and high performance. We respect an employee’s right to balance their private and professional lives and believe it helps us attract and retain competent people.
Customers
Ongoing dialogue with customers is part of the fundamental nature of our business. We have daily dialogue with customers about their needs and expectations.
We aim for honest and accurate communication about our customers’ business as well as the services and products we create for them. We always seek a customer’s approval before openly discussing or publicizing a service we have created for them.
Partners
We treat our suppliers and sub-contractors equally and seek for cooperation build on trust and confidentiality. We focus for objective assessment of price, quality, and reliability in competition. We expect our partners to comply with our code of conduct and to oppose illegal and unethical labor practices as do we.
Owner
Edita Group Plc is a Finnish public limited company owned by the Finnish state that holds 100 percent of the shares. The owner is represented as member of Edita Group’s Board of Directors and regularly receives information about our business in the form of financial reports.
Monitoring risks proactively
Monitoring risks proactively
Risk management is an inseparable part of Edita Group’s strategic planning and operational goal setting. Risk management is based on an organization-wide approach to identifying, assessing, managing, and monitoring various risks.
The executives are responsible for managing risks related to corporate responsibility and reacting accordingly. Edita Group’s board of directors has approved the risk management methods applied by the executives. The executives assess the likelihood and significance of each risk. The Board of Directors also monitors and assesses risks that have been categorized as significant.
Financial risks
Regular monitoring of financial risks helps us to identify risks related to our business operations and react to them in advance. A risk can be anything that might have an impact on the company’s ability to meet its business objectives.
People
Our most important non-financial risks are related to people. These risks include:
- Management and the key people who work closely with key customers deciding to leave the company.
- Challenges in recruiting talented specialists with right cultural fit and managers who can develop the business and are good leaders.
- Failure in engaging the key people.
- Occupational risks related to printing, such as accidents, chemical leaks or fires at production plant.
We manage people-related risks by implementing good employee experience and talent attraction. In addition, we focus on employee and leadership development. We work for enhancing a collaborative growth culture, nurturing and inspiring leadership and efficient talent development and recruitment practices. We maintain good lines of communication, communicating as openly as possible, and enhance employees’ involvement in developing our business.
Environmental risks
A fire or a chemical leak at a production plant could damage the environment. We consider our other environmental risks to be minor.
Environmental risks are mainly managed through various environmental management systems, such as compliance with the ISO14001 standard; our production company follows procedures established in environmental management systems to identify and prevent potential emergency situations and accidents that could harm the environment. These procedures are audited annually by accredited third parties. The companies regularly review and test their emergency preparedness and response procedures.
Climate change
Climate change is not a substantial risk for our business. Nevertheless, we find combating climate change very important as it is the greatest threat to sustainable development globally.
We have managed to reduce our climate impact significantly since 2008 when we began assessing the ways in which our business contributes to climate change.
In 2009, we started taking measures to reduce our carbon-dioxide emissions and began compensating for a proportion of these emissions. Further information can be found on the environmental responsibility section.
Social responsibility
- Governance
-
Environmental
responsibility -
Social
responsibility -
Financial
responsibility
operating principles
We trust and
respect
Trust and respect are the foundation of our operations, which we are continuously strengthening together. We trust ourselves and each other. We value our own and others’ expertise. We promote equality and respect everyone as an individual. Together we work toward building an open and thriving work community.
Together we
succeed
We believe that the prerequisites for success are working together and engaging in open and continuous interaction. We show interest in each other by thanking, listening, asking, and discussing.
We learn and
grow
We boldly look for new ways of working by experimenting and innovating. We learn together by sharing knowledge and giving feedback. We fuel each other’s courage to develop and increase our competence. We have our sights set on the future and want to lead the way.
We care for our
customers
We actively listen to our customers and help them reach their goals with our expertise. When our customer succeeds, we can be proud
Learning principles
Learning
systematically
Learning
together
Cherishing an attitude
of learning
Reflecting
regularly
Focus on strategy and people
At Edita Group, we are building a modern organization that makes use of digitalization. We develop our operating models and culture to support our employees’ day-to-day work. Skilled and motivated employees, good and transparent management, self-directed teams, teamwork and shared guiding principles support Edita Group’s long-term goals. We want to create an inspiring hybrid work environment for employees, which also enables teams to work in the most appropriate way.
Emphasis on good management in 2023
Focus on employees’ health and safety in 2021
The aim of Edita Group’s HR strategy is to support and develop the organization’s capabilities and ensure that the group has the right experts in the right positions. The Group’s strategy serves as the starting point for building the targeted competence and leadership. The role of the organizational culture that is engaging, inspiring and based on shared guiding principles has a great impact on how well our employees perform in their work. We are committed to building a growth culture providing employees with learning opportunities, nurturing their talent, offering inspirational leadership and fair rewards for achievement.
Every Edita employee has the right to good leadership. In late 2022 and early 2023, we invested more in managerial work. We pursue a unified management culture and practices that focus on self-directed teams and accountability. As part of this, we organized coaching-style managerial work training for supervisors. We increased its impact by organizing training in a coaching-style approach to work for all employees in spring 2023. We measure the effectiveness of the continuous development of management by the annual employee satisfaction survey and quarterly pulse surveys. Based on the results, management and managerial work at Edita Group are at a good level. We will continue systematic work to instill inclusive and coaching focused leadership in our organization.
The visibility of leadership and active communication have laid down a good foundation for Edita Group’s internal cooperation. Our supervisors have received tools, instructions and support for hybrid leadership of people and teams through a coaching-style approach to work. Our operating models are based on a self-directed culture, where teams have the responsibility and freedom to plan their own work. At the same time, we support a sense of community in management and encourage teams to share local workdays and units’ office days.
In the second half of 2023, we focused on organizational learning
Towards a hybrid working model in spring 2022
In 2023, we also focused on clarifying the objectives related to the roles and tasks of employees and strengthened opportunities for professional growth. Our annual competence management process includes competence dialogues between the supervisor and the employee, supporting the professional development of our employees. This has helped managers better understand the importance of comprehensively addressing and planning employee learning and development. Competence development is critical to business success and employee well-being.
Edita Group wants to develop its employees’ professional skills in a goal- and people-oriented manner. We believe that learning happens more effectively in day-to-day work and in cooperation with others.
The learning organization plays an important role in increasing competence. Therefore, during the second half of 2023, we started the implementation of our “We learn and grow” guiding principle, aiming to make learning a visible part of the day-to-day life of every Edita employee. Learning is at the core of expertise, and learning takes place at work through constant experimentation, insight, reflection and interaction with others. As an employer, we take responsibility for the development of our employees’ competence, but we also encourage everyone to take responsibility for the development of their own competence and, above all, for maintaining a positive learning-minded attitude.
The learning-focused workshops held in the fall of 2023 resulted in Edita Group’s shared learning principles. They have been discussed at Leader’s Roundtable meetings between management and supervisors from the perspective of cultural leadership and strategic direction. Since the beginning of 2024, the teams have received various practices from Edita’s learning principles for their work, which make learning a natural part of everyday life. The aim is to instill an inspiring and learning-friendly atmosphere into everyday life at Edita.
Development of social responsibility will continue
The second half of 2022
Our four guiding principles – We trust and respect, Together we succeed, We learn and grow, We care for our customers – were created together in late 2022 and form the core of our cultural work. To support the cultural change we are pursuing, as well as to promote responsibility and self-direction, we will continue to strengthen our coaching, leadership and feedback skills throughout the organization. The development of these abilities is important for everyone, and especially for our managers, who are expected to show a model of our desired practices.
We will continue to work on competence development to further clarify the roles and objectives of employees. We also focus on learning and professional development. Strengthening capabilities and developing successor plans for key roles will be a priority throughout 2024.
Progress is measured through pulse surveys, which ensure that we are making progress towards our goals and taking the right actions to achieve them.
Year 2021
– the first half of 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic continued during the reporting period and due to increased remote work we focused on supporting employees’ feeling of belonging and managers’ new ways of leading teams.
A major impact on our organization was the divestment of the Nordic Morning business area in February 2022. As part of the ongoing organizational and cultural change, we conducted an engagement survey among our employees in March. The clarity of the employees’ roles and performance targets and strengthening opportunities for professional growth were some of the main themes in the survey. Results show that 79 percent of the respondents say they know what is expected of them and that they have clear performance targets. The corresponding figure in 2020 was 71 percent. This is a remarkable improvement, given the circumstances.
Pleasingly, the trend looks positive, and we are moving in the right direction when it comes to strengthening our desired culture and behavior. Of the statements in the survey, the one where the level of agreement has increased most among our employees is: “I am empowered to make decisions in my area of responsibility.” This jumped from 3.98 in 2020 to 4.09 in 2022, on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being total agreement.
Emphasis in the future
Our guiding principles, which form the core of our cultural work, will be revisited during the fall in collaboration with our employees to clarify what we value and want to strengthen in our culture. We will also continue to strengthen our coaching way of working and feedback skills across the whole organization. Yet another focus area will be our performance development framework to further increase the employees’ role clarity and make their goals clearer, as well as increase the focus on learning and professional development.
Gender distribution of
employees (%)
Age distribution of
employees (%)
Age distribution of employees (%)
| Business area | under 30 years | 30-50 years | over 50 years |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Edita Legal Information |
19 |
37 |
44 |
|
Edita Learning |
15 |
64 |
21 |
|
Edita Prima |
2 |
32 |
66 |
|
Other |
8 |
42 |
50 |