It’s time for our second comundo conversation and this month we were lucky enough to sit down with Ask Jessen from North Media, a listed Danish media group headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

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It might not be the sexiest company alive (his words, not ours!), but they have a pretty sexy setup when it comes to all things sustainability. Curious? We bet. 

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Who are you and what do you do? 

My name is Ask Jessen, and I’m the chief sustainability officer at North Media. My primary work is to work with the green transition of not only the mother company but also all its subsidiaries.

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I joined to help move us to the next level of sustainability compliance. We were doing some work in the area, you know, the kind of cover-my-ass work that so many do, but we knew we needed to be fully prepared for the coming legislation and we wanted to get all the value that being compliant can bring. 

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My first task is to make sure we are compliant with legislation, so CSRD implementation and how this unfolds in the ESG world. One big part of that has been to calculate our CO2 emissions in Scope 1, 2 and 3. We started out working with an external partner, but have recently decided to take it in-house. So now it’s basically an extra column in our financial sheets. 

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ESG is an extra column in our financial sheets.

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Every time there’s an expense, we have a CO2 emission or CO2 equivalent emission in that column, based on that expense. Over time, we’ll convert more and more of the lines in our financial sheets into activity-based calculations, instead of spend-based. 

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Right now, that compliance side of things is taking up all my time, but once this is done, I can start looking more into the actual activities we can do to help us transition. For example, we work with a lot of transportation, so we’re discussing how and if we can utilise our solar panels to a greater extent with our subcontractors driving around in vans; if we want them to transition to electric vehicles they need to know if they can charge them at our place. And then there’s the vehicles in other countries, like Sweden, and there’s our heating, electricity, and so on. 

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The compliance side will hopefully get smaller, but we also know that this year there’s going to be a lot of focus on it. 

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Can you tell us a bit more about how ESG is integrated into your financial setup?

Every single line in our financial reporting has a CO2 equivalent in it, so we know the emissions for each and every item in the report. 

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We use various databases to get this number to make sure it’s as accurate as possible, and once we’ve built the system, it’s not so hard to do the calculation – it’s just about getting the data in and then the system handles the rest. Of course, we have to make sure the conversion rates are correct if new numbers are introduced from a framework, but that’s it.

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Do you think this setup you have, with finance and the sustainability teams working side-by-side, is the future for all companies?

I do think we’re ahead of the curve. I think it would be detrimental for companies if they do not manage to get that link between finance and sustainability connected. Having worked together so closely over the last few months, I now have no idea how anyone would do this any other way. 

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If you think that you can just take the easy route, it can take you in a very wrong direction!

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When we worked with a partner the numbers we got from them were very different from what we calculated in-house. So, for example, if we spent 10,000 DKK on a subcontractor who drives around and delivers leaflets, our partner would say well, 10,000 DKK spent on transportation is X amount of CO2. 

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But the problem is that this subcontractor doesn’t sit in their car all the time. A lot of the time is spent walking around with a small hand-pulled cart delivering leaflets, so the main part of that expense is a wage, not fuel or transportation. So of course the actual CO2 is far lower, and that’s what we managed to do in-house. 

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So if you think that you can just take the easy route, it can take you in a very wrong direction! The discrepancy can be huge. 

What do you think is the most frustrating part about your role?

It’s probably the fact that I have to work with everything in the company, so there are a lot of areas I’m unfamiliar with – but I want to get it done now! I need to understand so much in terms of where we have problems, what they are and how they impact the overall business, and that just takes a lot of time. 

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ESG needs to be part of the overall strategy and considered at the highest management level.

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Until a few years ago, ESG or CSR was a silo where it was just 'let’s do something over here' and 'let’s do some marketing and communication and make a CSR report'. But now it’s integrated, and because of that it needs to be part of the overall strategy and considered at the highest management level because you cannot invest without thinking, is this eligible or is this aligned with the taxonomy? So, it’s not frustrating as such, but it takes a lot of work. 

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Was your role always welcomed or was there some resistance towards this increased focus on sustainability?

It varies. Some people are thrilled. I’ve never been in a position where so many people volunteer suggestions as to how I can do my job – and I mean that in a very positive way!

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There are a lot of people who want to get engaged, but there are also some people pushing me away, asking why they even need to do this. And there might be more urgent things, but we need to prepare for the reporting. Take, HR, for example, If there is a pay gap between men and women, we need to make sure we can explain why. There might be a really good explanation, but if there’s no explanation, you’ve got a problem. 

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This kind of reporting is becoming a hygiene factor for companies.

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Being prepared, as early as possible, uncovers a lot of potential issues and that gives you the opportunity to address them. If you don’t prepare and then have to report at the last minute, it’ll be a nightmare. Of course, a big factor in getting people onboard is the fact that it’s the law now. So, you know, we could decide not to do anything and sure, right now there’s not a fine and you won’t go to jail, but this is going to change. 

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This kind of reporting is becoming a hygiene factor for companies – if we want to have a good conversation with politicians and NGOs, and just be relevant for the workforce, we need to be at the forefront. And we’re not a very sexy company, so we need to have a different play.

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How do you see sustainability roles developing?

I would be very surprised if the sustainability role doesn’t become a lot closer to the strategy role. I don’t think anyone will be able to look at direction, investments, or even down to individual projects without thinking about sustainability and incorporating it. I honestly don’t think it’ll be possible. 

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I think it will be impossible to have sustainability in a silo.

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It’ll be part of the budget, effectively. This project will cost this much and have these emissions associated with it. That’s why we already have it so tightly integrated with our finance department. Companies like SAP are already working on including emissions on the product or service bought and you’ll just be able to plot it into your reporting. And that’s just reporting. What about procurement, say IT equipment? If you needed a new computer, would you buy a new one with high emissions, or would you buy a second-hand one to bring down emissions and help reach targets?

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Honestly, I think it will be impossible to have sustainability in a silo. I think it’ll all merge together where you have some very passionate ESG people, and you have the very commercially focused business people working very closely together. That’s where I see it going. It’ll be some interesting constellations!