HKFoods

HKScan is one of the largest food companies in Northern Europe, operating in Finland as well as Sweden, Denmark and Poland. The company has 17 production units in total.

The HKScan corporate responsibility programme has ambitious targets, the progress of which are regularly monitored on the group level. The company’s central goal is to have a carbon-neutral food chain by the end of 2040, and they carry out climate work in close cooperation with contract farmers and other partners.

A year ago, HKScan started using Tofuture’s sustainability management tool, so that the collection of ESG data between different locations and countries would be more straightforward, accurate and risk-free.

“We have a versatile responsibility programme, so we wanted a tool that allows us to collect and report data also other than greenhouse gas emissions. The most important thing for us was to improve the quality of ESG data and the timeliness of reporting,” says Tiina Piilo, Corporate Responsibility Manager at HKScan.

Making data collection more systematic

The EU directive on the reporting of non-financial information entered into force in 2017. Although HKScan had been working on sustainability on the group level for a long time, this was the starting point for even more systematic ESG data collection.

“We updated our responsibility programme and conducted a large stakeholder survey. We chose GRI as our reporting framework for the collection of ESG data,” Piilo says.

In the past, data was collected manually using Excel spreadsheets. In a large organisation with many production units in different countries, this is a rigid method. The risk of errors is also high.

“Our primary goal was for the ESG data to be real, correct and of high quality. With the help of Tofuture’s tool, the transfer of data has become more efficient, there are fewer errors, the data can be validated faster, and the reporting takes place in a timely manner,” says Piilo.

Tofuture’s versatile tool proved its value

HKScan had already been following a variety of responsibility reporting tools for years before the investment decision was made.

“We assessed different systems from several perspectives. Tofuture’s tool seemed versatile, as we were able to include our entire responsibility programme in it, not just the greenhouse gas emissions. With the GRI-certified, easy-to-use tool we can now also ensure the quality of ESG data, which is very important to us,” says Piilo.

Tofuture’s tool has been in use at HKScan for a year now.

“The tool was tailored to our needs and has worked very well. We are always thinking about how we could further improve our reporting of ESG data. The tool is scalable according to our needs, and we have been able to implement all our ideas.”

Sparring cooperation

The co-operation with Tofuture has worked well. Piilo has been particularly pleased with the fact that all agreements have been adhered to and that the development process has included both dialogue and sparring.

At HKScan, sustainability work is the foundation of the company’s strategy. The company’s top management has defined all the indicators and objectives that are observed at both business unit and group level.

“Each business unit has its own employees responsible for sustainability . The responsibility for providing the ESG data has been spread out among those people who normally handle similar data, such as electricity consumption,” says Piilo.

HKScan’s next objective is to bring more automated data collection into the reporting process. This will help to avoid human error even more effectively and free up time for other work.