One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that Landsvirkjun has chosen to focus on is SDG 5 on gender equality. Landsvirkjun has outlined a three-year project to show its commitment to supporting gender equality within the Company, and various measures have been set in motion.
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Equality in corporate culture
Gender equality has been a cross-divisional, strategic priority at Landsvirkjun for the past few years.
The Company’s work in this area is driven by a grassroots movement that doesn’t just focus on the gender pay gap and gender ratio, but creates a pathway to ensure that gender equality becomes intrinsic to our corporate culture.
A three-year action plan has been developed for gender equality (2019-2021) and 17 improvement projects have been defined to achieve these goals, based on the results of an employee workshop.
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Landsvirkjun was awarded the PWC Gold Standard for the fifth time in 2019. Women’s salaries were 1.2% higher than men’s salaries, placing them within the PWC threshold.
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We held various workshops in 2019 to discuss corporate culture with employees from all over the country. We subsequently identified and decided on nine objectives specifically aimed at improving corporate culture. We want to create a workplace free from discrimination, where everyone can recognise their full potential regardless of gender.
The equality policy and improvement projects already in place reflect our intention to foster a corporate culture based on equality, inclusivity and diversity. We are not involved in an ‘equality drive’, but rather a collective effort to support the incremental evolution of our workplace culture.
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Landsvirkjun received the Gender Equality Encouragement Award in 2019. From the left: Þórdís Kolbrún Reykfjörð Gylfadóttir, Minister of Tourism, Industry, and Innovation; Hörður Arnarson, Chief Executive; Selma Svavarsdóttir, Director of Human Resources; and Halldór Benjamín Þorbergsson, Director General of SA Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise.
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Sustainable development
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a blueprint to promote environmental, social, and economic sustainability worldwide. Bringing these goals to fruition will require the concerted effort of nations around the world, and the active role of companies is essential.
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Sustainable Development Goals in day-to-day work
In early 2017, Landsvirkjun decided to focus on three of the SDGs: SDG-13 on climate action, SDG-7 on affordable and clean energy, and SDG-5 on gender equality. We have worked hard to integrate these goals into our operations.
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A total of eleven SDGs workshops have been held.
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In 2019, we made great strides in further implementing all seventeen of the Sustainable Development Goals in our operations. We held a total of eight workshops in which employees from across the Company integrated the SDGs into their daily tasks. Employees also examined the Company’s operations as a whole with respect to the SDGs and assessed project priorities accordingly.
An additional three workshops were held in January 2020, and the implementation of the SDGs now extends to all areas of the Company. Findings from these workshops will be used to determine our priorities vis-a-vis the SDGs, and will serve us well when creating a broader sustainability policy in 2020.
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Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
SDG 5 – Gender Equality
SDG 5 aims to ensure gender equality worldwide. We abide by a three-year gender equality action plan, which was put in place in 2017 and includes seventeen improvement projects. In 2019, we received the Gender Equality Encouragement Award.
SDG 7 – Sustainable energy
SDG 7 states that every human being should have access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by 2030. We are hard at work on a number of innovations and technological research projects to support this goal. We were also the first Icelandic company to issue green bonds in order to fund projects that advance the sustainable, reliable, and efficient utilisation of natural resources in Iceland.
We also support a wide range of companies, NGOs, and independent projects that advance the development of sustainable energy use.
SDG 13 focuses on global action to combat climate change. In 2019, we introduced a comprehensive climate change action plan, and we plan to be carbon neutral in 2025.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed upon by all UN Member States in September 2015. The SDGs consist of 17 objectives and 169 targets.
