Cegal Sustainability Report 2024: How we're reducing emissions and supporting sustainable technologies
Cegal Sustainability Report 2024 has just released, as part of Cegal’s annual sustainability review. Our annual sustainability report covers how we are working to reduce emissions, empower women, and secure data privacy, among other topics.
Our sustainability strategy is divided into three pillars, each corresponding to one of the letters in the acronym ESG: Environment, Social, and Governance. To us, sustainability is a prerequisite for reaching the business goals we have set out for ourselves.
- We contribute to a better environment. Taking care of the environment is an issue we don't only care about but contribute to.
- We take social responsibility. Our goal is to build a legendary company that our employees love to work for and that our customers love to work with.
- We are a responsible player. We must take responsibility beyond ourselves to contribute to the global sustainability agenda.
In the Cegal Sustainability Report 2024, we dive deep into how we are working together to reach our ambitious ESG goals. In this blog post, we briefly touch on a couple of our main goals and our ESG progress last year.
Becoming carbon neutral by 2025
The UN and the EU have identified the technology industry as one of the most important drivers for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Being a part of this industry, which is one of the premise providers and has a strong influence on other industries, we have a responsibility beyond ourselves. Our focus within the environment is divided into three main areas:
- Reducing our own carbon footprint. Our ESG roadmap supports our goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2025 for selected areas.
- Supporting our customers in achieving their sustainability goals by providing digital technologies supporting reduced emissions.
- Super skilled tech people who contribute to environmentally friendly solutions and responsible consumption and production by our customers.
We are committed to reducing our energy consumption and associated carbon emissions from our own operations. We are also committed to helping our customers reduce their carbon emissions by using better and more energy-efficient technologies. We achieve this by using cloud platforms powered by renewable energy and closely monitoring the energy consumption of data centers.
We reduce power consumption through the use of more efficient servers equipped with cutting-edge power management tech and streamlined hardware components. These servers feature energy-saving processors, memory, and storage solutions, leading to notably decreased energy consumption. In addition, optimizing server virtualization and workload consolidation techniques can enhance resource utilization, effectively curbing power usage.
Initiatives have been implemented to reduce our carbon emissions, including motion sensor lighting at multiple offices, hybrid working opportunities, promotion of public transport use, and cycle-to-work schemes. Agreements have been implemented with suppliers for the return of computer and mobile equipment. This includes policies for the safe erasure of data, re-usage, or recycling of equipment. Cegal uses a supplier for equipment that has been used for a longer period of time for safe re-usage and recycling.
Read the story: Cegal embraces sustainable IT and unlocks environmental, business, and financial benefits >
Supporting Save the Children with cyber security and technology
At Cegal, we want our employees to have meaningful work, and we have at least one "goosebump project" every year where our employees can volunteer for equality, peace, and justice. We recently entered a long-term partnership with Save the Children Norway as their first EdTech partner. The partnership is an important part of our sustainability strategy and is led by our internal organization, Humanity at Cegal.
Cegal is a key contributor to Save the Children's global EdTech project, where we contribute funding but, more importantly, also provide pro bono services, leverage our technology know-how, and solve technical issues on the global education tool Improving Learning Environments Together in Emergencies (ILET). Cegal’s cybersecurity advisory has also been involved and has been well received by Save the Children Norway and International.
Read the story: Cegal is Save the Children's forst EdTech partner >
Read the story: Cegal works for free for Save the Children >
Read the story: NRK Telethon 2023 supports Save the Children - we want to contribute >
Empowering women across our organization
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) are inherent parts of our sustainability strategy. Our track record for working with diversity is good in terms of gender equality in a binary definition of gender identity – male and female is good. By 2023, we reached a 30% proportion of newly employed women, up from 14% in 2020. From 2020 women i management group raised from 11% to 50%.
To address a broader set of target groups for diversity through an intersectional approach, other minorities are to be included in this work to create an authentic sense of belonging.
An initiative grew from the organization to create an advisory board for diversity, Diversity at Cegal. The initiative has management support and was an area of focus and priority for 2023. Along with working to build a presence beyond Norway, it will work towards a common understanding that all members of the Cegal organization are responsible for contributing to equity. During the year, inclusive language and gender-neutral pronouns have been included in the Tone of Voice and Language style guide.
Read the story: Inspiring inclusion at International Women’s Day 2024 >
