We published our first ESG Report about a year ago. During the year, the world around us has been extremely turbulent, both economically and especially geopolitically, and given ELKO Group’s geographical coverage, it has been an ultimate test to demonstrate resiliency and ability to navigate stormy waters. We are sincerely glad that our colleagues in Ukraine are well and the business has resumed full operations despite the war in the country and have humbly offered our help and assistance, where possible, to accommodate some of our colleagues and their families across ELKO Group.

While the first report was rather a testament to our awareness about ESG aspects in our company as such, we have gone a long way through the year while increasing our scope, in-depth understanding and targeted initiatives to improve across every aspect of ESG while continuing to face everyday challenges in the business.

This year we have almost all ELKO Group companies covered in the reporting scope, which has proved to be an internal challenge in terms of data gathering but has also highlighted market differences in terms of acceptance of ESG importance and industry readiness to provide necessary data across the supply chain. That has also provided us with qualitative insights for further development and necessary reporting improvements across our companies.

We have developed our own internal scoring system for our vendors, them being the largest environmental footprint generators in our industry, to make an awareness of our product portfolio sustainability, and we are satisfied to conclude that most of our revenue is being sourced via world-leading suppli-ers that have taken ESG matters at heart and are working hard to achieve their goals to reach climate neutrality. We have also created a supplier code of conduct to make sure that we are in perfect sync with our vendors regarding the aspects of conducting business that we perceive as critical for business sustainability.

An increasing number of vendors are starting to provide circular economy-related initiatives, which is a welcome development and we are excited to engage and pass those programs through our channel in the markets.

Geopolitical instability has significantly complicated the international trade environment and we have invested to greatly increase our compliance capabilities to make sure that we are able to fully comply with an ever-increasing number of requirements and restrictions.

Awareness certainly brings challenges with it, as we discovered in some of the data, for example, gender equality in the company’s management, but we accept the current situation and pay increasing attention to issues highlighted so that we would improve the situation going forward.

I am certain that initiatives for the future emphasised in the report will help ELKO Group to become more environmentally friendly, socially responsible and better governed. The path towards sustainability is a marathon, not a sprint, and I am delighted to say that we are on the right track!"

Svens Dinsdorfs
The CEO of ELKO Group