avk-esg-2024-25 - Flipbook - Page 43
G
OUR GOVERNANCE
Corporate culture
In the AVK Group, our corporate culture is
a critical foundation for sustaining growth,
ensuring quality, and aligning our core values
across our companies worldwide. The "AVK
Way of Leadership", a leadership manifesto,
has the purpose of embedding core principles
and shared values, such as environmental
standards, safety, and quality, in all operations,
creating a unified culture regardless of regional
differences.
Based on our Double Materiality Assessment,
corporate culture has been identified as a
material topic that affects both the Group’s
reputation and the trust of customers, suppliers,
and other stakeholders.
AVK promotes a culture where transparency,
accountability, and the reporting of concerns
are central elements. We encourage dialogue
and offer channels where employees, partners,
and stakeholders can report irregularities or
violations of policies without risk of retaliation.
Likewise, we have implemented guidelines
and policies for business conduct, including
anti-corruption, competition, responsible
supplier management, and ethical standards
for employees. These policies are supported
by training, internal control mechanisms,
and systematic follow-up, ensuring that our
employees have the necessary framework to
act correctly and consistently.
Key highlights of 2024/25
Future goals and activities
• 113 supplier audits have been
conducted in 2024/25 as part
of the 2024/25 audit plan, an
increase of more than 113% from
the 53 supplier audits conducted in
2023/24.
• A comprehensive Group-wide risk
assessment will be developed in
alignment with CSRD and ESRS
requirements when updated
requirements have been settled by
EU in Q1 2026.
• A revised Code of Conduct for
suppliers, Business Ethics Policy,
and Anti-Corruption and Anti-Bribery
Policy have been implemented.
• We will secure implementation of
our Code of Conduct for suppliers
by incorporating it in our global and
local management systems.
* For further details, see Governance under Tables, comments, and accounting policies
Going forward, we will continue to strengthen
our efforts on responsible business conduct
by continuously updating policies, improving
internal control processes, and ensuring
that ethical standards are upheld across all
companies in the Group.
Supplier management
and collaboration
During the financial year 2024/25, the freight
situation has stabilised overall. However,
there have been occasional minor disruptions,
primarily due to tariffs imposed by the US
government. These have led to increased
pressure for early shipments aimed at avoiding
the tariffs, which in turn caused congestion in
other regions as vessels were diverted.
Part of this work has required an extra effort
to ensure that both existing and new suppliers
have been able to deliver while complying with
agreed requirements and standards.
Despite the challenges in our value chain, we
have managed to deliver to our customers and
integrate new suppliers. These suppliers have
been subject to our normal approval processes,
including supplier audits, to ensure responsible
behaviour.
Code of Conduct
With the specified supplier requirements and
the AVK Group Code of Conduct for suppliers,
we want to make sure our suppliers are aware
of and work on decreasing their environmental
impact, that they respect human rights,
and that they do not use forced labour or
exploitative child labour. AVK’s Code of Conduct
is integrated into all purchase agreements
with suppliers, it is part of our standard terms
and conditions for purchase, and it must be
accepted for all purchase orders.
If an AVK supplier or collaborator does not
comply with our Code of Conduct, we will
initially notify them of non-compliance and
initiate a dialogue to improve. In case of
repeated non-compliance with our Code of
Conduct and compliance is deemed unlikely,
we will move to terminate the collaboration with
the supplier.
We have initiated the rollout of the updated
Code of Conduct for suppliers. All AVK Group
managed suppliers have been notified about
the reviewed Code of Conduct and a majority
of our suppliers have already accepted and
acknowledged it.
Supplier selection
As we operate in countries where compliance
with human rights, occupational health and
safety, environmental and climate protection
AVK Group Sustainability report 2024/2025 | 43
