Social Responsibility
Nordstern strives to conduct sustainable business in the broadest sense of the word. Therefore, we spent a significant part of 2023 developing and implementing an ESG strategy, which focuses not only on the environmental impact of our company but also on the social and governmental aspects
Social Strategy
Our ESG strategy allow us to closely monitor and measure our impact, progress, successes, and shortfalls.
Nordstern has a substantial impact on the local communities in which it operates. The buildings we construct stand for decades or centuries and affect not only those who build them and the users but the entire surrounding community. Therefore, we want to ensure that the mark we leave – both physically and socially – is as positive as possible.
We do this by, among other things, the following initiatives:
- Vulnerable youth from social housing areas can get a job at the construction site e.g. by a pocket money scheme.
- Employing people on the edge of society in e.g. flexible working arrangements, job training programs, part-time jobs and NExTWORK traineeships and thereby giving them a fresh start, either to get a job or start an education.
- As part of our contract with our subcontractor, we have integrated an apprenticeship clause and a labor clause.
Health and well-being for the employees
When measuring our development within the social aspect of our ESG strategy, our employees remain our focus and top priority. Our goal is to create the safest and healthiest work environment possible in the Danish construction industry. Consequently, most of our social strategy and targets are focused on our employees and the contractors who work on our projects.
Our goal is to have a sickness leave percentage lower that 2%, and we met this target in 2023 with an average of 1.5%, not including long-term sickness. Including long-term sickness, the sick leave percentage was 2.7%, a slight increase from 2022’s 2.4%. One cause of long-term absence is stress, which we aspire to bring down through different initiatives such as our project manager network, where colleagues accross the company meet several times a year to be inspired and forge lasting bonds.
To improve the health and well-being of our employees, we also work with a few other initiatives, including:
- Nordstern Sport where the employees organize various sports activities that motivate them to have an active everyday life and foster good corporate spirit.
- Offices and construction sites have e.g. height-adjustable tables and fruit schemes.
- We also support campaigns that promote public health, including the cancer awareness campaign Knæk Cancer.