CEO´s Sustainability Review

Bittium acts as a responsible corporate citizen in the surrounding society. We are a reliable local partner and employer that operates in accordance with common operating principles and seeks policies and solutions that promote sustainable development. To support this, in the autumn of 2021 we prepared a new sustainability program for the years 2022–2025. Our sustainability will be based on three key themes: our employees, customers and information security, and the environment. This sustainability report, concerning the year 2021, is based on the indicators and targets of the existing sustainability program.

A responsible business practice lays the foundation for trust, which is nurtured by implementing Bittium´s values in actions. Our operations are very regulated, so huge part of our sustainability is based on confidentiality and ensuring security. Our industry is full of ever-changing standards and regulations that we obey and be up to date with changes. This is one of the basic conditions for our operation.

The second year of the coronavirus pandemic has, in a good way, forced us to continue to reform the company´s policies. Taking care of the well-being of our staff has been high on our work list, as about 70 percent of our employees have been working remotely from home during the year. We have maintained our participatory and conversational culture through various measures and will continue to invest in good leadership.

The global shortage of components also affects Bittium. We have mapped numerous Finnish and European suppliers to obtain the necessary components for our products. For some critical components, deliveries have been relocated from afar to Europe and even Finland, closer to us.

At Bittium, ecology is the starting point for all product design and development, which is why we constantly pay more attention to the principles of the circular economy. We aim to comply with the EU´s Ecodesign Directive, which aims to improve the energy efficiency of products by integrating environmental considerations and life-cycle thinking into the product design phase. The directive is now being extended to include the effects of software production on the life-cycle assessment of a product´s ecological footprint. Bittium has participated in the authority work of this directive both at the Finnish and EU level.

In 2021, we achieved the goals we set for environmental sustainability. At its best, 13.5 per cent of the utilized electricity at the Oulu premises came from solar energy. Our total carbon footprint was 718,690 kg CO2e, which is a decrease of about 5% from a year ago. The reduction in the carbon footprint was due to a significant reduction in air travel caused by the coronavirus pandemic and a change in the calculation method for waste emissions.

Hannu Huttunen

CEO