Sustainability Agenda 2020–2025

Sustainability Agenda 2020–2025

Suominen’s sustainability agenda crystallizes the sustainability themes and targets for the strategy period 2020–2025. The agenda was approved by the Board of Directors, and progress in different areas is regularly monitored. The agenda focuses on four themes, People and safety, Sustainable nonwovens, Low impact manufacturing and Corporate citizenship.

Our sustainability targets and key performance indicators

Materiality

Sustainability is an integral part of our strategy and thus, we strive to continuously develop it and work towards being a frontrunner in sustainable nonwovens. As a part of this, we believe that it is vital to understand our stakeholders’ perceptions of our impacts, risks, and opportunities in relation to sustainability to serve the whole value chain in the best possible way. Identification of the most material aspects of sustainability helps us to prioritize our work and efforts in this area. 

Suominen renewed its materiality assessment during 2023–2024 to comply with 
the requirements of European Sustainability Reporting Standards. In 2023, Suominen started the process to update its materiality to take into consideration all our impacts, risks, and opportunities throughout our value chain (double materiality). The process included internal workshops with key experts and management, and stakeholder engagement. In internal workshops, topics relevant to the business of Suominen in all parts of the value chain were listed and the negative and positive impacts of these identified. Actual and potential impacts were identified based on internal expertise and documentation, including Suominen’s overall risk assessment, HSE assessment and performance results and stakeholder surveys. The topics were grouped based on evaluating the severity and likelihood, which is based on the operating environment and risks identified by the Executive Team. Stakeholder engagement included a survey for stakeholders – such as customers, employees, institutional investors, suppliers, industry associations and owners – and interviews with key stakeholders.

Suominen conducted its first double materiality assessment in 2024. The process of identifying and assessing material impacts, risks and opportunities through a double materiality assessment followed the requirements of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. The double materiality assessment was carried out in the beginning of 2024 with an external partner. The scope of the double materiality assessment included all Suominen’s operations and geographies and our key business relationships within our value chain.

Our previous materiality assessment was conducted in 2019, which is the basis for the Sustainability Agenda 2020–2025. The scope of the 2019 materiality assessment was different from the double materiality assessment and the results are not directly comparable. The agenda is based on the six most material sustainability topics for Suominen: eco-friendly products, health and safety, energy efficiency, waste prevention, financial stability, and employee engagement.