Varma in top one per cent for the third time in EcoVadis sustainability assessment

EcoVadis assesses companies on their sustainability performance from the perspectives of the environment, labour & human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.

The independent assessment report was completed in March 2024. Varma’s previous EcoVadis result is from 2022, and since that assessment, Varma’s overall score increased from 80 to 81 out of 100.

“Our goal is to be a sustainability pioneer in the earnings-related pension insurance sector. Our excellent result shows that we are prioritising the right issues in developing sustainability,” says Senior Vice President of Sustainability and Communications Hanna Kaskela.

Environmental sustainability score increased further

Our environmental sustainability efforts received the highest points (90/100). In the assessment, EcoVadis highlighted our commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and the targets we have set in keeping with the initiative, as well as our quantitative targets related to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Our participation in the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, a commitment of financial institutions to mitigate biodiversity loss, also improved our score. In addition, our extensive reporting on environmental matters was raised as a strength.

According to the assessment, human & labour rights are also at a commendable level in Varma’s operations in terms of both policies and concrete measures, and we received a score of 80/100. Of the different areas of the assessment, we gained the most in procurements (60 > 70).

“With our overall score being so high already, we will focus our development measures on even finer details. The concrete development proposals, many of which are related to reporting, that we gain from the EcoVadis assessment encourage us to further develop different areas of Varma’s sustainability,” says Kaskela.

In 2023, we broadly developed various sustainability aspects. We assessed fund management companies’ sustainability and how prepared our investees are to consider biodiversity, and we looked into the standard of our suppliers’ human rights work. We also started preparing for the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. The most significant effort was Varma’s double materiality assessment carried out last autumn.

We report on our 2023 sustainability actions in the Annual and Sustainability Report that came out in March.

Established in 2007, EcoVadis assesses and rates companies’ sustainability. Its assessment methodology is based on international corporate sustainability standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the UN Global Compact and the ISO 26000 standard. Companies use the assessments to compare the subcontractors in their supply chain.

Further information

Hanna Kaskela, Senior Vice President, Sustainability & Communications, tel. +358 40 584 5045 or hanna.kaskela(at)varma.fi

Hanna Leskelä, Communications Manager, tel. +358 40 704 5164 or hanna.leskela(at)varma.fi