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development program is just one of the
ways Tuomas sees KONE encouraging
professional advancement, fostering
management and leadership skills.
Trust in all areas
Having a workforce of more than 45,000
people, at many different sites, makes it
essential to have a code of conduct that
all employees know and respect. And
in taking an ethical approach, KONE also
promotes employee wellbeing and
ensures discrimination is not tolerated.
But over and above that, sustainability
is also about “developing a culture of
working together, and of trust”, Tuomas
adds emphatically.
There is a chorus of agreement from
the others.
“Trust is at the heart of all that we
do,” says
Eriikka Söderström
, Chief
Financial Officer. “It has to be if we are
really to achieve sustainability, because
we are in this for the long term.”
Good economic performance helps
to serve customers better, provide jobs
and keep supplier networks running.
But that is only part of the picture.
“We aim to have profitable growth,
but it also has to be sustainable growth,”
she says, adding that many investors in
KONE pay close attention to this.
“Our investor community is very
much focused on how sustainable busi-
nesses are doing. And those who pay
increasing attention to this are expecting
more measurement.”
Assessing KONE’s progress in setting,
achieving and exceeding sustainability
goals is crucial. But just as important is
reinforcing the message from KONE to
employees, suppliers, customers and
investors that sustainability is a continu-
ous process of improvement.
“Our success relies on people
supporting us by buying our solutions,
investing in us, promoting our
point of view and delivering on our
strategy,” says
Liisa Kivelä
, External
Communications Director. “To do this
they need to trust we will deliver on our
promises. This trust is built on a good
reputation,” she adds.
Personal commitment
Kivelä sees maintaining KONE’s reputa-
tion as a sustainable business as the
responsibility of all employees.
“All of us can help to support our
reputation by doing our best. This means
that we deliver on our promises, keep an
eye on potential issues and proudly share
our great stories,” she says.
Those stories include technological
innovations: making sure customers
are aware of KONE’s advances is as
important as the breakthroughs and
incremental improvements themselves
in spreading sustainable solutions.
KONE’s volume elevators now
consume about 70 percent less energy
than they did just six years ago. So
through a process of modernization,
partnerships with KONE can ensure
continuous improvements in customer
operations too, the executives agree.
Just as sustainability is part of busi-
“Those companies
who pay attention
to sustainability
expect more
sustainable
measurement.”
“Maintaining
KONE’s reputation
as a sustainable
business is the
responsibility of
all employees.”
ness life, the executives see it playing an
important role in their personal lives.
Uusitalo establishes an obvious
starting point in respecting resources:
avoiding waste, aiming for energy
efficiency and ensuring the longest
possible life for manufactured products.
Reusing and putting old goods to
new purposes can also help. “Even
worn-out clothes can find a new lease
of life, when I turn them into rag rugs,”
she says with a laugh.
For Söderström, recycling and com-
posting are important basics of life at the
traditional Finnish cabin, where preserv-
ing nature is something of an obsession.
But for Pihkala, at the basic level, it is
really all about attitude.
“If you really think about sustain-
ability, it is that you care for the people
around you and you care about your
environment,” he says.
“And that’s really what we expect
from every KONE employee: that you
can be proud of what you have done,
that you were acting in a responsible
way and were looking out for others.”
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