The sustainability and impact of the solutions developed by VTT lie at the heart of VTT’s corporate responsibility. The objective is to enhance our handprint, in other words, to ensure that our solutions actually improve the world, not only minimise any adverse effects. Everything is founded on the high ethical standards we apply to our research activities.
VTT combines science and technology to solve global challenges and create sustainable growth. As far as sustainable operations are concerned, the most important thing is that the solutions and innovations we develop for our customers are sustainable and leave a handprint instead of a footprint. This generates the greatest impact, or the benefits research and technology provide for the world.
“The content of our research constitutes the core of our sustainability,” says Jussi Manninen, Executive Vice President of business area Solutions for natural resources and environment. He answers for sustainability matters in the VTT executive leadership team. “We work in a challenge-driven way, which means that our research is guided by global challenges. VTT’s work becomes visible and has impact through our customers succeeding in a sustainable manner.”
Corporate sustainability programme is also a means of implementing our strategy
Sustainability is an important part of the VTT strategy for 2021–2025. Our customers and partners also require that we constantly extend the scope of sustainability.
“One of our five strategic choices is that we always drive sustainable business,” Jussi Manninen explains. At the turn of the year, VTT defined the priorities for its corporate sustainability programme, which are empowered customers, resilient society, employee well-being and diversity, and being an ethical and sustainable company from an environmental, societal and financial point of view. According to the stakeholder surveys and materiality analysis conducted in 2020, this is where VTT's strength lies.
As technology must serve all kinds of people, it must also be developed by as diverse group of people from different backgrounds as possible. This will enable us to yield real influence on society and to ensure that it keeps reforming itself, remains safe for everyone and can cope in changing circumstances.
All this requires a stable economy. VTT is a non-profit organisation, but its operations must naturally remain profitable. We maintain a versatile funding base and require that the providers of the funding follow high ethical standards.
Ambitious goals and keeping track of them serve as incentives
At the beginning of 2021, VTT will define the precise goals and indicators for its sustainability programme. One goal has already been decided.
“We want to become carbon neutral by 2030,” Jussi Manninen says. “We have launched a development programme in which we will produce a roadmap to carbon neutrality for VTT, with concrete measures and timetables. This way we wish to ensure that the choices we make genuinely reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions.”
Sustainability work can never be fully done. Manninen is happy about the solid basis on which VTT's corporate sustainability rests: “We have 2,000 top professionals tasked with bringing exponential hope to the world with the help of science and technology on a daily basis. There are solutions, and more solutions can be developed.”
