Nalka | Sustainability

A long-term perspective

Nalka has a long-term perspective and recognize our responsibility towards our co-workers and portfolio companies, as well as to customers, suppliers, business partners and society at large.

Our sustainability approach

We consider sustainability an integrated aspect of our investment approach and ownership model. Our sustainability approach is centered around three dimensions: Invest, Influence, and Live.

The Invest and Influence dimensions stand for the largest sustainability footprint and opportunity, as these cover our initial screening and due diligence, the entire ownership period and the exit process. However, we will only be successful in the long-term if we stay true to our values and lead by example (Live).

Our heritage and owner

Nalka Invest is a part of the Interogo Holding group – a foundation-owned investment business focusing on sectors and strategies benefitting from a long-term approach, patience, financial strength and commitment to consider sustainability and other non-financial aspects of investments.

Our commitments to responsible investing

We include sustainability in our investment decisions

For all potential investments, sustainability is a central factor in the screening, due diligence and investment decision.

We exercise our influence to drive sustainable improvements

We use our influence as owners to drive meaningful change and contribute to sustainable businesses in line with our investment strategy.

We cannot do everything, so we focus on where we can have the greatest impact and the material aspects of each situation.

We lead by example

We strongly believe in giving and taking responsibility and recognise leading by example as a powerful leadership approach.

To be trustworthy as investors, as owners, and in our governance, it is essential that we live as we learn. We lead by example, throughout the investment cycle.

Our priorities

Long-term sustainable progress involves a lot of change, togetherness, and goal orientation. In line with the ambitions of our owner, Interogo Holding, we focus on three major areas: Climate, Inclusion and Business ethics.

Climate

We believe that by contributing to the reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, and by protecting and reconstructing carbon-accumulating ecosystems, we can contribute to improving life on our planet.

Inclusion

Providing meaningful and decent work for people is an essential part of a functional economy and a fair and inclusive society. We believe that through our activities we can influence and support positive change. By supporting diversity and inclusivity we contribute to making businesses stronger and thereby support a fair and equal society.

Business ethics

We believe that by doing good business with common sense, based on honesty, respect, fairness and integrity and by upholding ethical principles, we can contribute to better, safer, and more trusting societies.

Impact

The most important sustainability work is done by our portfolio companies. It is Nalka’s ambition to always be an active and engaged partner to all our companies.

Being an active and engaged partner means that we support our businesses on their development journeys, striving to understand both the actual impact of a specific business as well as identifying opportunities for improvement.

To monitor progress within our three prioritized areas, Nalka annually collects data from each portfolio company, providing Nalka with an overview of current status, progress, challenges and opportunities.

Climate

Understanding the actual impact of our businesses is key for the individual business and for us as owner and partner alike. In order to improve, we need to understand where we stand.

Methods for monitoring and estimating Green House Gas (GHG) emissions is under development, and not unique for Nalka and our businesses, data quality remain challenging.

Despite challenges, we see that all our businesses are annually improving their abilities to monitor and report Co2/GHG data, making impact estimations as relevant as possible.

In 2023, 9 out of 11 companies monitor and report in scope 1,2 and 3. All our companies also have intensity KPIs in place, enabling annual performance monitoring.

Inclusion

At Nalka, we firmly believe that organisations with a diverse workforce composition, which inherently fosters an inclusive culture, have a competitive edge. Therefore, diversification is a prioritized area for us, and we aim to improve the proportion of women and the ethnic and cultural composition of the leadership of Nalka and our portfolio companies.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion are topics broader than binary gender identification, however have selected an initial focus on female/male representation.

Unequal representation of women in executive and board positions is a challenge for society in general, including Nalka and the majority of our portfolio companies.

This issue is clearly visible in our annual monitoring, both within Nalka and most of our portfolio companies. As employer, owner and investor, our ambition is to improve female representation across Board and other executive and managerial levels.

Business Ethics

We believe in doing good business with common sense, based on honesty, respect, fairness and integrity.

With this view, we strive to support our businesses in establishing and developing frameworks and controls, securing that each business meet not only our demands, but also the demands of other external stakeholders.

A Code of Conduct reflecting the specific industry and conditions of the specific business, is one of the key tools we secure that our businesses have in place and live by.