Grano's 2023 Responsibility Actions

For Grano, corporate social responsibility always means concrete actions. We put together a list of our responsibility actions in 2023, and we will also continue to develop our responsibility and sustainability effectively in every area: Environmental sustainability, social sustainability, economic responsibility and customer responsibility. Our goal is to be the most responsible operator in our industry.

Developing ways of making daily life easier for Grano personnel

In January 2023, we launched a new personnel survey to be carried out once per quartal. New questions related to corporate social responsibility have been added to the survey to give the Grano people more opportunities to influence Grano's responsibility actions. This survey provides us with valuable information on the everyday lives of Grano employees, and we will actively track the results to carry out the development measures in different teams. We also took part in Oikotie's Vastuullinen työpaikka survey for responsible workplaces for the first time. We gained valuable insight about our situation, as well as means with which we will continue to develop our working community.

Grano became a member of the Nollis® forum and started using the services of Auntie. The Nollis® forum – also known as the Vision Zero Forum – provides materials for the development, training and communication of occupational safety practices, while Auntie is a service helping employees in matters related to coping with work.

Improving training and the induction process

We care about Grano employees, which is why we want to help develop our fantastic talents increasingly inside the house. We built a new training tray for our electronic learning environment, with the purpose of supporting the implementation of development plans, for example. New training courses related to responsibility and certificates have also been added to the selection. In addition, topics related to well-being at work and management of occupational abilities will be addressed in training events, and further investments were made in the training of supervisors in 2023, in particular.

We want new employees to feel good when taking up their new duties. This is why Grano's induction process was renewed at the end of 2022, and was now being used for the first year. In addition, we renewed the goals and the development discussion process to better serve the Grano people.

Total outsourcing of payroll services and use of a workforce management system

We reformed our payroll services and outsourced them so that we can ensure better management by knowledge, life cycle documentation of employment, the accuracy and timeliness of wage and salary payments and the consideration of changing legislation as part of the operations. In addition, in early 2023 we introduced a new workforce management system, which makes it easier for Grano personnel to monitor working hours and absences and plan shifts. This system allows for predictable operations, and automation enables our employees to avoid unnecessary manual work. The system displays data related to working hours in real time, such as accumulated overtime. The system will also ensure compliance with legislation and company-specific rules.

Several actions taken to support the environment 

In 2023, we developed many areas related to environmental sustainability. During the year, we reviewed our supply chain and therefore created ethical guidelines for our suppliers to promote their commitment to more sustainable solutions. In addition, we have specified the calculation of carbon emissions, giving us more accurate and coherent data.

Carbon-neutral products and services have been important to our customers and partners, so we increased the number of works with ecolabels in 2023. As demand will also continue to increase in the coming year, we will continue to develop this area.

In addition to improving our supply chain and carbon-neutral products, we introduced an application for the management of chemicals as part of the introduction of the EHS application. We used it to improve chemical safety and the certainty that we are always in compliance with the legislation. The application allows us to identify harmful substances more effectively, and now we have also launched work to introduce more environmentally friendly chemicals. At the same time, we have digitalised all audits, inspections and evaluations of occupational safety risks with the EHS application. All the risk assessment and audit templates of Grano have been updated, and the application has also been commissioned in the 5S audits.

We also made changes with the help of the Nordic Swan ecolabel’s guidelines, because its set of criteria for printing houses has been updated. As a consequence, all materials, substances and chemicals used in Grano’s Vaasa and Vantaa production units have been reviewed in accordance with the new requirements.

Sustainability Ambassador operations started in Grano

Since we are developing our responsibility in every area, we chose Sustainability Ambassadors from within Grano’s organisation. These Ambassadors will present information on responsibility and sustainability to the members of their own unit and ensure that responsibility will become part of our day-to-day work. This will help increase responsibility awareness at Grano and bring up new ideas for improving our work for responsibility.