Tietoevry has set some big sustainability goals for the years ahead. Our new HIT team helps to identify and develop ways we can get there together with our customers.
01 March 2022
Sustainability always starts at home. Every person or company is responsible for getting their own backyard in order first. That’s why we’ve put a lot of effort into developing our energy and circular-economy practices, diversity and inclusion policies, sourcing activities, and more.
But as an IT company, there’s, even more, we can do in the area of sustainability. With the knowledge and the tools we work with every day, we have the power to help our customers improve their sustainability performance. This is also where Tietoevry can make its biggest impact on sustainable business practices.
In early 2021, we formed a cross-functional sustainability HIT team tasked with developing this opportunity. The team is led by Senior Sustainability Manager Ulrika Lagerqvist von Unge.
“We saw that many of our customers are looking for new co-operations and solutions to fuel and advance their sustainability efforts, so we focused more closely on how we can help. We reached out to some of Tietoevry’s business leaders and asked them to nominate people within our different delivery organisations who could support us in realising these impact opportunities for our customers. This led to the establishment of what we now call the sustainability HIT team”, Ulrika says.
The HIT team comprises eight employees, with plans to add additional headcount in the years to come. The team kicked off its work in 2021 by taking an inventory of ongoing sustainability-related projects and partnerships Tietoevry was involved in. They then assessed how and if these could be merged, scaled or repeated. A lot of work has also been done on building awareness – both inside and outside the company.
“Tietoevry employees have a lot of knowledge about tech and business, but they may not always see how it connects with our sustainability agenda,” says Lagerqvist von Unge. “So part of our job is to spread that knowledge and join customer teams in both internal and external dialogues on possibilities that we have at hand.”
Tietoevry Lead Business Consultant Peter Mankenskiöld is an industry and application advisor who is part of the HIT team too. He brings insights from the B2C world, specifically from working with public-sector customers and having been involved in sustainability initiatives since 2008.
“A lot about sustainability really comes down to information management. When you have good control over your data, you can use it for different purposes. In this way sustainability KPIs can be a steering mechanism to provide a wider perspective on making business decisions,” Peter says.
“One of the HIT team’s crucial roles is that we can collect all the relevant sustainability activities and initiatives from across Tietoevry, so the customer can see that we have a palette of different services. This helps us with cross selling. As you get to know a customer better, you can offer them lots of different solutions from our portfolio,” he continues.