Can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability or other environmentally- friendly activities?

For many years, one of KONE’s strategic targets has been sustainability. Since 2008, we have published our annual sustainability report, highlighting our key achievements and ambitions, and have received several recognitions for our environmental and social performance. For a decade, we have been recognized by CDP leadership score for our initiatives targeted at reducing emissions, mitigating climate risks, and developing a low-carbon economy. Recently. we were ranked as the 19th most sustainable company in the world by Corporate Knights, a leading sustainable business magazine and ranking organization.

At KONE, we aim to embed sustainability in everything we do. We have also defined four pillars where we aim to make a change:

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – we aim to 35% of director-level positions filled by women by 2030.

Ethics and Compliance – our goal is to be an industry leader in ethical business conduct and annually train all employees on ethics and compliance.

Environment – established in 2020, our Science Based Targets and climate pledge were the first in our industry. We are committed to cut our operations’ emissions by 50% and reduce the emissions from our products’ materials and lifetime energy use by 40%, relative to orders received by 2030.

Customers and Solutions – we want to be a preferred partner for customers and cities and offer the most sustainable solutions and services to our customers.

Wherever possible, renewable electricity is purchased at our offices and factories. We offer innovative solutions like regenerative drives for lifts, where electricity can be returned to the building’s power grid, much like how a car’s braking power is returned to charge the vehicle. We also aim to make our operations carbon neutral by 2030. In terms of maintenance, we offer KONE Care DX ™– a carbon neutral maintenance launched with a carbon compensation option in some markets.

Finally, close to 30 of our products have received the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) – a third party verified document that describes the life cycle environmental impacts of our products. When calculating a building’s carbon footprint, these EPDs can be used by customers to obtain green building certifications. Our EPDs are compliant with the EN15804 standard required by LEED and BREEAM.

Why are in-house lawyers well-placed to drive change in their organisations?

In many organisations, in-house lawyers are trusted legal and business advisors for leadership teams. They can persuade leadership and risk committees that being sustainable is a strategic opportunity and good for business. Awareness of the applicable laws enables the in-house lawyer to assist the business in navigating regulators, shareholders and stock exchanges. An increase in ESG activism by shareholders and stakeholders has also forced in-house lawyers to be better equipped and take proactive measures to be ESG evangelists.

It can be difficult to truly measure a company’s track record and accomplishments in terms of their environmentally friendly behaviour. What do you think has, until now, been mostly missed when discussing how green a company is?

I fully agree that measuring a company’s environmentally friendly behaviour can be difficult. This is why we want to partner with reputable ESG publications and organisations like CDP, South Pole, Science Based Targets and Green Building associations.

Sustainability disclosure regulations are developing quickly. In the European Union, these regulations impact KONE as a Finland-based Stock Exchange listed company and in Singapore, laws and regulations on carbon tax are getting clearer.