Climate strategy

KONGSBERG’s operations have very low direct emissions. However, the carbon footprint of our entire value chain is significant, and in 2021, we have prioritised to improve the data quality in our climate accounts and set emission reduction targets for our own operations and supply chain. To support the Paris Agreement, we need to reduce energy consumption, transition to renewable energy and develop solutions that help our customers reduce their own emissions.

KONGSBERG can make a substantial difference throughout the value chain. To deliver our systems and products, KONGSBERG relies on thousands of sub-suppliers all over the world and our clients use our systems everywhere 24/7, from the very deep oceans to outer space. To make a real difference we need to involve the entire value chain from our sub-suppliers to our clients, both in Norway and internationally.

KONGSBERG has developed a new climate strategy in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. In October 2021 our CEO Geir Håøy signed and submitted a Commitment letter to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) where he committed KONGSBERG to set climate targets that are in line with a 1.5-degree scenario. We have set preliminary targets for 2030 and will during 2022 further develop the targets as part of the approval process in collaboration with the SBTi.

We will focus on reducing carbon intensity in our own business, increase the use of green logistics solutions, reduce our own travel, increase the amount of waste recycling, optimize material management and implement a greater degree of circularity in our activities. We will also further develop our analysis and reporting of climate related risks and opportunities, based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

We aim for near 100 per cent reductions of CO₂ emissions by 2030 (scope 1&2), compared to 2019 (baseline). This will be achieved by a combination of energy efficiency measures and tech upgrades from fossil to renewable energy together with sourcing certified green electricity. We will provide more details on approach, measures and methodology when the targets are final. We are also addressing emissions occurring in our value chain, as preliminary analysis shows that this represents our biggest impact and thus improvement potential. In our current reporting we have available data for logistics and business travel (scope 3), and we are working to further increase data quality to expand the scope 3 emissions reporting. We aim for 25 per cent reduction in emissions from logistics and 30 per cent reduction in emissions from business travel by 2030.

In addition, we will engage and collaborate with our suppliers. Our aim is that within the next 5-year period, 2/3 of KONGSBERG suppliers set science-based CO₂ emissions reduction targets.

This will require major efforts both by us and our business partners, but it is needed to achieve net-zero and limit global warming to 1.5-degrees by 2050.

KONGSBERG has been through major structural changes over the last 3–4 years and the way we measure emissions both within our operations and our value chain has evolved. We have also been through almost two years where the way we work has been affected by a still ongoing pandemic. This means that comparison with historical emission figures has its limitations. For our future targets we have decided that the representative baseline for business as usual is 2019 adjusted to include full year operations, including acquired companies.

We are monitoring our production facilities and preparing climate and environmental accounts which give an overview of our energy consumption, CO₂ emissions and waste management. Read more about this in the key sustainability figures and climate and environmental accounts that cover all Norwegian units, all production units and major offices abroad. All our business areas are certified in accordance with ISO 14001 Environmental Management.

We will continue our efforts to enhance internal expertise, tools and processes for analysis and reporting.

None of our Business Areas have reported non-compliance or significant fines or sanctions for violations of environmental laws and/or regulations.

For 2021 we reported to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), achieving Category B. Read our CDP report here.

In February 2021, Kongsberg Gruppen and ZERO, a Norwegian Environmental NGO, signed a three-year collaboration agreement. The main intention for the collaboration is to accelerate the shift to renewable and emission-free solutions.