Jenni Strengell, St1: Insightful collaboration and practical guidance – our journey in the SDG Ambition Accelerator Program

We at St1 are committed to develop our value chain towards more sustainable. For that we need dedication and commitment not only from our own organization, but also the partners around us. Participating in the SDG Ambition Accelerator Program has enabled us to take great leaps forward in our mission and we have developed an ambitious sustainability strategy for our company. Though being only in the beginning of our journey, we have received lots of guidance from the program on how to lead our sustainability work and integrate it more thoroughly to our daily operations. The SDG Ambition approach has provided valuable insight to how to efficiently integrate sustainability into our business development and daily operations, with concrete practical exercises. Systematically unpacking every step of the Ambition approach with informative videos, real-world examples and facilitated sessions with other companies, succeeds in translating a complex process into feasible and understandable actions. But most importantly: the program has encouraged us to honest self-reflection, which has been eye-opening. We are continuing the same exercises with our management and leadership teams in near future. Systematic approach is something that we need, and we see this as a learning experience.

One of the fundamental takeaways for us has been what it means to set ambitious but clear objectives in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 as a private company, with such a complex value chain. Throughout the process, we have been encouraged to actively engage with our peers to learn from each other – that has been valuable. The program has also equipped us with the tools to contextualize our own impacts and to utilize our enhanced understanding to develop targets that improve our ability to leave a positive impact on people and planet. Overall, participating in the program has contributed greatly in translating how Sustainable Development Goals can inspire concrete action in the private energy sector. 

As mentioned, we are only in the beginning of our journey, and this is a marathon. We will not be ready by tomorrow, but we need to start today. Ultimately, the program has inspired us at St1 to conduct a similar exercise in the development of our new sustainability strategy, with clear and measurable targets. We have taken inspiration from the facilitated sessions and the material provided by the UN Global Compact to create a series of sustainability workshops within our organization. During May we will go through the same path with our management and leadership teams in order to really kickstart this ambitious target setting and get the whole organization on board. The only way to do this is, is to do it together with a systematic approach.

PS. You can read more about our journey from our newly published Game Changer. :)