// A corporate environmental policy

During 2008, a working group consisting of representatives from all parts of the Group has been working with a new environmental policy for Veidekke. The group is led by a member of the corporate management team. The first drafts of the new document were completed in the course of last year, and we are aiming to integrate the elements of the policy with the Group's other strategy work in the coming year.

It is Veidekke's ambition to be a leading player in our industry when it comes to reducing CO₂ emissions and taking care of the environment. This means that

• Concern for the environment will form an integral part of our operations
• We will provide our customers with added value through our environmental competence
• We will seek to reduce our environmental load by measuring it
• We will set requirements for our cooperating partners
• We will make contributions beyond our own company – through trade organisations, at educational institutions, within research and development, and in cooperation with authorities and politicians

Environmental work plan for all entities in 2009

As of 2009, all our divisions shall draw up a specific environmental work plan, obtain an overview of their own environmental load and risk, and work with identifying business opportunities arising from environmental efforts. When working with environmental protection measures, one is often forced to look at familiar issues from a different angle, with more efficient and cost-effective solutions as a result. In other words, a win-win situation for the environment and the operation of the Group. New business opportunities may also occur, in the form of new products. Our low-energy housing concept TellHus and our recycling activities are good examples of this.

Our environmental work has several strengths

During the work with the new environmental policy, a SWOT analysis was performed to help us concretise efforts, and also to maintain a realistic level of ambition. We have several clear strengths, such as our extensive recycling efforts, an established environmental management system, a committed top management team, and an ongoing process of ensuring the involvement of employees, customers and suppliers. There are many areas of opportunities, such as boosting the internal motivation of Veidekke employees and becoming more attractive to investors and customers who are gaining more and more knowledge of and interest in environmentally smart solutions.

But also some weaknesses

A possible weakness in this context may be our highly decentralised organisation, as this may make the implementation of a policy more demanding and time-consuming. The size of the company may also make it difficult to create one policy that is suitable for everyone. Relevant threats include increased costs – an ever-relevant discussion topic – and the challenge of finding a realistic level of ambition. These strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will all be very important in the further work on the policy. We will also continue increasing the environmental competence of the employees, including basic climate knowledge. As part of our internal training programme Veidekkeskolen, we have therefore established courses on the following topics: energy and building, dangerous waste, universal design and substances hazardous to health and the environment (substitution).