At Framery, sustainability is central to our innovation and strategy work. Our sustainability agenda incorporates economic value creation, social responsibility, and the environmental efficiency of our operations throughout our entire value chain. Sustainability is a fundamental part of our company’s mission to increase happiness and helps to support our customers’ demand for sustainable products, both now and in the future. We have just published our Sustainability Report 2020 and as an introduction to it here’s a peek into our sustainability work in 2020.
Enhancing sustainability during a challenging year
Without a doubt, the Covid-19 pandemic definitely caused quite a few challenges for our business during 2020. That said, it also proved to be a positive year when it came to building up a pretty good kind of resilience in terms of funding and as a company as a whole–and our team was ultimately able to take the hits we confronted last year.
Our purchased material volumes and total revenue declined in 2020 due to the global disruption caused by the pandemic, but sales and revenue began to pick up again in the fourth quarter. Our outlook for 2021 looks positive and indicates a solid return to growth.
The driver of our future growth
We are proud of the fact that we signed up for the Science Based Targets initiative during 2020, and our overall sustainability work across our entire value chain continued strongly even amidst the multiple challenges and disruption that impacted us, both as individuals and as a company. Framery also remains committed to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) –to adopt and implement sustainable and socially responsible policies– and will continue to advance the goals of the Global Compact through our actions.
New circular economy business model
During the year, we completed multiple projects that had sustainability as their primary focus. Our new circular economy business model, named Framery Subscribed was successfully implemented and further expanded throughout 2020. This is a business model with enhanced ‘product as a service’ thinking, allowing us to fully re-service one of our pods and provide it to a new customer in a condition that is considered comparable to a totally new product. This really gets to the heart of our sustainability work, as it highlights the fact that our products are made to last, and that we are able to deliver potential multiple lifetimes of service for our market-leading products. The Subscribed model was rolled out in five countries during 2020: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands. Currently, we have about 150 companies that are part of this circular economy business model, with around 250 pods and booths being utilized. ‘Subscribed’ will scale up in other countries as well throughout 2021 and beyond.
Taking care of people (and pods)
Returning to the topic of Covid-19, we reacted rapidly to the evolving circumstances. We offered detailed information and delivered concrete actions to help keep our employees safe. We also provided comprehensive information to our customers to help answer their many technical and health and safety-related questions about our pods and booths. Furthermore, we offered new anti-bacterial and anti-viral copper handles and new anti-microbial fabrics as optional product materials, designed to help further protect our valued customers and end-users. Our efforts on this front were particularly well received. Finally, throughout the year, we pushed ahead with multiple R&D projects that focused on, amongst other things, Covid-19 and how it impacted us and our customers, as well as how it will continue to impact the next-gen workplace of the future.
Framery’s CEO Samu Hällfors has an important message to everyone: “To all our valued employees, customers, suppliers, dealers, and investors, let me say that while the year was difficult, I believe we are now stronger because of it and I am very positive about our future. Successful companies understand happiness, so let’s continue together to create a business that makes the world happier!”
If you’re interested in reading more about our sustainability work and our Sustainability Report 2020, head here!