SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2017
Social Impact
Lerøy Seafood Group is a corporation involved in global business and working relationships with suppliers and subcontractors worldwide. In order to safeguard all our activities, we have drawn up a set of values that ensure good practices, fair compensations, safe working conditions and environment, equality, protection, and responsibility.
Social Impact

Social Environment

The company has an international working environment. We operate in a global industry in which we make an important contribution to successful integration in the local community by employing residents at our facilities.

Where do our employees work?

Social Impact

Employees

Lerøy´s number of employees keeps growing. New jobs are being created not only in the fisheries and fish farming industry but also in local and national businesses that supply products to our industry.

The parent company, Lerøy Seafood Group ASA, has its head office in Bergen, Norway. In addition to the Group CEO, the parent company has 11 employees.

In administrative terms, all personnel functions are handled by the wholly-owned subsidiary Lerøy Seafood AS. At year-end the Group had 4,298 employees, with 2,880 men and 1,418 women. 825 of the group`s work years are outside Norway. The proportion of women is 33.0%, representing a minor increase on the previous year.

The company operates in a global industry in which the constantly changing framework conditions require flexible employees who are dynamic and willing to adapt and learn. The Board of Directors would like to take this opportunity to praise the employees’ efforts, their understanding of the need for an operational focus which targets results, and their willingness to adapt to change throughout the entire organisation. The Board of Directors would like to thank all employees for their hard work in 2017.

Social Impact

Code of conduct

The Group is responsible for ensuring that the ethical code of conduct is put into practice, but each employee also bears an individual responsibility to follow the code of conduct when carrying out tasks for the Group.

Lerøy's main activities are in Norway, but we trade with numerous countries worldwide. It is therefore important for us to ensure that all our activities comply with our set of values.

Lerøy Seafood Group is a corporation involved in global business and working relationships with suppliers and subcontractors worldwide. In order to safeguard all our activities, we have drawn up a set of values that apply to us and our partners in our daily work. Our ethical code of conduct has been reviewed by the Board of Directors and implemented in every Group company. The Group is responsible for ensuring that the ethical code of conduct is put into practice, but each employee also bears an individual responsibility to follow the code of conduct when carrying out tasks for the Group. The company management is responsible for ensuring full implementation of and compliance with the ethical code of conduct.

Key words for the contents of the ethical code of conduct:

  • Ethical requirements for suppliers and subcontractors
  • Requirements in terms of regulation of working conditions for employees
  • The rights of the company’s employees, and those of suppliers and subcontractors
  • Factors relating to HSE
  • Forced labour/discrimination
  • Exploitation of resources and impact on the local environment
  • Corruption
  • Notification of censurable conditions
  • Ethical guidelines for employees representing the company outside the workplace
Social Impact

Employment and fair compensation

Lerøy Seafood Group works hard to ensure that all the rights of the employees are protected and respected, emphasizing equality and equal employment opportunities, as well as a discrimination-free environment.

Independently of the demand for equal opportunities for men and women, the Group has always emphasised individual skills, performance and responsibility in its recruitment policy and salary system. 

Furthermore, the Group at all times ensures equal employment opportunities and rights for all employees. The Group works hard to prevent discrimination based on national origin, ethnicity, colour, language, religion or personal philosophy. 

One of the company’s goals is to provide a workplace that is free from discrimination based on disability. Wherever possible, the company will arrange for individually-adapted workplaces and work tasks for employees or work applicants with disabilities.  

Our Code of Conduct sets out good practices defining how management and employees should handle various situations arising within working conditions. 

Social Impact

Fair compensation

Lerøy´s personnel system together with labour unions are fully committed to ensuring that all employees are compensated fairly in every country where we operate.

The Group complies with the laws applicable in the different countries in which we operate. Our compensation policy means that no employee is paid less than the official national minimum wage. All our employees have working contracts in which compensation is listed. Our personnel system and the presence of labour unions ensure that all employees are compensated fairly. 

This cooperation is also very much evident at the core of the Group, where the corporate management and a working committee representing the majority of trade unionists exchange information and discuss shared challenges and opportunities, both at regular intervals and whenever required. Formal discussions and negotiations are also conducted when necessary.

Social Impact

Freedom of association

At Lerøy Seafood Group, we keep a close relationship with employee representatives, as well as maintaining an active cooperation between the company and employees/trade unions.

All our employees are free to organise themselves in various unions, including the right to engage in collective bargaining. The various companies in Lerøy Seafood Group have their own employee representatives who look after formal cooperation between the company and employees/trade unions. 

Companies in the Lerøy Seafood Group work closely with employee representatives, based on a close working relationship between local representatives and local management at each company.

Social Impact

Diversity and equal rights

The Group works hard to ensure a discrimination-free environment, where every employee is treated equally, independently of their origin, ethnicity, colour, language, religion or personal philosophy.

Independently of the demand for equal opportunities for men and women, the Group has always placed emphasis in its recruitment policy and salary system on individual skills, performance and responsibility. 

Furthermore, the Group ensures equal employment opportunities and rights for all employees at all times, and works hard to prevent discrimination based on national origin, ethnicity, colour, language, religion or personal philosophy. One of the company’s goals is to provide a workplace that is free from discrimination based on disability. Wherever possible, the company will arrange for individually-adapted workplaces and work tasks for employees or work applicants with disabilities.

Social Impact

Employee welfare

The Group works actively to keep sick leave rates as low as possible. In order to make this happen, Lerøy Seafood Group offers complete health and safety training to every single employee.

In 2017, only minor injuries were reported among employees. The Group’s Norwegian subsidiaries reported an accumulated sick leave of 5.97% (4.4% in 2016). This figure comprises 3.79% long-term and 2.18% short-term sick leave. The Group works actively to keep sick leave rates as low as possible, and The Board is pleased to see how successful this approach has been.  to observe this. Comparable sick leave statistics are not available from our foreign subsidiaries. However, the organisations in the individual subsidiaries are subject to continuous development, and all employees within the Group complete health and safety training. Both the working environment and the atmosphere of cooperation are good. 

Numbers of accidents, near-accidents and safety issues are recorded monthly.

Social Impact

Employee training

The Group offers its employees various forms of skills development, such as internal/external courses, further education, training on operations assessed for risks related to corruption, trainee programs etc.

With the seafood cluster in Bergen, the Group has played a strong role in creating customised training programmes for the seafood industry in recent years. Together, the cluster has developed:

  • A specific one-year trainee programme.
  • A two-year MBA programme at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
  • A Masters programme in aquaculture and seafood at the University of Bergen. 

Since their development, these programmes have proved extremely popular, and a number of new programmes and places for students have been and continue to be created.

The Group also has other trainee programmes, “Kysttrainee” and “Komtrainee”.

In 2017, Lerøy in Norway had about 15 trainees in Norway and 60 apprentices. The Group invests substantial resources in recruitment work, since future availability of labour is important to us.

In 2015, Havfisk was named “learning company of the year”. The company has about 2 apprentices per trawler at all times.

Social Impact

Social work environment

Lerøy Seafood Group maintains a constant focus on the working environment, promoting good health and a healthy diet, as well as all kind of social events, where the Group´s employees are encouraged to interact with each other.

Each company organises different types of events. These might be family days, social gatherings, motivation meetings or events involving sports. The majority of our subsidiaries offer various types of sporting activities for their employees.

The Group has a strategy of promoting good health and a healthy diet, with a focus on children and young people, whom the Group targets via a number of channels. The Group, via its subsidiaries, has also provided plenty of opportunities for Group employees to keep fit and improve their health, with a number of measures including weekly fitness sessions, participation in company sports teams, mountain hikes, cycling, skiing etc.

The Group companies maintain a constant focus on the working environment and carry out regular evaluations in this area. Measures are implemented to ensure that the working environment is optimal for all parties involved.

Social Impact

Integration

Lerøy Seafood Group supports the social integration of employees from other countries and regions, as well as refugees, through facilitating labor integration in several of our facilities.

Lerøy Seafood Group has an international working environment. A number of our employees are from other countries, and several of our companies have multinational workforces. Some of our companies are located close to local refugee centres. By employing residents of such centres, we make an important contribution to successful integration in the local community. A number of the people who live in such centres work at our facilities for longer or shorter periods of time. They contribute towards value creation while, at the same time, gaining valuable experience of working life in Norway.

Social Impact

Health

The health, both of our employees and clients, is one of our most important focuses. We are actively engaged in providing our customers with the best possible quality, improving the work environment of our employees, sharing transparent information, and giving nutrition lectures in schools, among many other things.

Within the group, we focus a lot on health – the health of our employees and of both current and future consumers. The individual human being, the consumer, is important both for the community and for us in Lerøy, as these are the people who will buy our products and therefore secure our jobs.

Within the focus area of health, we work in a number of areas:

1. EMPLOYEES:

  • Training and information
  • Good ergonomics in the workplace
  • Rolling work operations
  • Occupational health
  • Good fitness facilities
  • Various forms of organised training
  • HSE work
  • Preventive work
  • Risk analysis

2. CONSUMERS:

  • Competence-building work in relation to diet
  • Intensity agreements with the public, where we are committed to working with:
    - Reducing salt
    - Increased consumption of seafood
  • Product development
  • Work creation

3. FUTURE CONSUMERS:

  • Information work in schools
  • Nutrition lectures for children and adolescents
  • Close cooperation with sports teams and national federations
  • Lerøy kit
Social Impact

Lerøy as a supporter

Lerøy has chosen to support various activities for children and young people locally, as well as larger regional and national sports organisations.

Energy from the sea

To have a healthy and balanced diet is important to us who work in Lerøy, but it is also very important for children and young people. We clearly see what positive effects seafood can contribute with through people's diet. Therefore, we work actively with our collaborators to get seafood on the menu for children and young people through increased expertise and access to seafood at various sports and cultural events around the country.

Our Collaborators

The Norwegian Rowing Federation

The Norwegian Skating Association

The Norwegian Handball Federation

The Norwegian Athletics Association

The Norwegian Volleyball Federation

Brann

Social Impact

Lerøy kit

The Group actively promotes a healthy lifestyle by supporting various social activities focused on children and young people, where they get free seafood products.

As a corporation, Lerøy Seafood Group has decided to support various activities involving children and young people in local communities. Diet, health and healthy eating are important elements in our efforts to help children and young people, and they are essential for young people if they want to achieve their goals. Each year we support a number of teams and associations that are involved in physical activities for children and young people with free seafood products. In Bergen last year we delivered: 

  • More than 12,000 kg of seafood
  • 45,000 units of seafood
  • 208,000 pieces with sushi

We are therefore always happy to see children and young people enjoying healthy seafood at different events.

Social Impact

UN sustainable development goals

The Group has adopted some of the Sustainable Development Goals established by the UN, including environmental, economic and social development goals.

The UN has adopted 17 global goals for sustainable development to transform the world over the next 15 years. The new goals for sustainable development encompass the environment, economy and social development, all within the same context.

  • Ending extreme poverty
  • Eliminating social inequality
  • Combating climate change and its impacts

All 193 UN nations have participated in compiling the goals. Lerøy has chosen to adopt some of these 17 goals. The goals we have selected are those most relevant to our processes, but we also have other goals that are closely associated with some of the other UN goals. Internal goals have been established for these areas in our underlying companies.

Social Impact

Reducing our co2 emissions

Lerøy Seafood Group has established different revolutionary measures in order to reduce the environmental impact; from obtaining power from land, hybrid fleets, floating solar cells, to working boats.

The group works in many different areas to reduce the use of electricity and fossil fuels. Among these measures, we can mention the following:

  • Transitioning from diesel aggregates on fleets to land flow – Power from land
  • Hybrid fleets
  • Floating solar cells
  • Operating working boats using solar cells
  • “Just on loan”

The various measures require technological development and a high level of expertise, and in many ways they represent a breakthrough in the industry.

 

POWER FROM LAND

Power from land usually makes good overall economic sense. Power from land results in:

  • Reduced emissions
  • Less noise
  • Good economy
  • Less maintenance

The further development of power from land should entail a degree of overcapacity, thus enabling any future electrified boats to be recharged.

More than 50% of our sites now run on power from land – a figure that will increase in the coming years.

 

HYBRID FLEETS

This solution is best suited to new projects and it works very well at sites where it is difficult to obtain power from land. It can reduce the run time on generators significantly – by about 50%.

The generators run at higher power when in operation, but for shorter periods.

  • Reduction in total energy consumption (although the generators also charge batteries when they are running)
  • Reduced emissions
  • Reduced noise levels
  • Reduction in the number of hours generators operate
  • Reduced maintenance
  • Batteries in separate locations 

OCEAN SUN – FLOATING SOLAR CELLS

At one of our sites in the south, we have a project that uses floating solar cells in the sea, with the aim of generating enough electricity for the site. This will allow us to stop using diesel generators for prolonged periods every day. An array of solar cells is mounted on a 160 m floating cage. To date, the project has produced very promising results.

WORKING BOATS

In the farming division, we are working on various projects investigating how we can work to reduce the emissions from our working boats. So far we have seen numerous expensive solutions with only moderate environmental benefits, but we are looking closely and carefully in order to find a good solution in this field.

We do not currently have any working boats that run on clean electrical or hybrid power, either in operation or in construction. Early solutions in the market have been found to be expensive and not good enough.

We have been working closely with system integrators throughout the year to establish a hybrid propulsion plant which we believe will be reliable and not too expensive. Once we have this in place, we will initiate a pilot project and build a working boat based on this concept. The cost and the properties of the boat will be decisive for future efforts in this area.

Fishfarming nets

Lerøy is recycling our fishfarming nets: In 2017 Lerøy recycled 633 593 kg Fish farming nets. 

Environmental benefits:

  • Decrease in non-renewable resources in about 1 077 108 kg oil eq
  • Decrease in carbon footprint is about 2 280 935 kg co2 eq
  • The reduction of climate gasses equals 20 549 plane passenger going from Oslo to London
Social Impact

Reducing plastic in the sea

The Group is actively involved in the process of recovering plastic waste from the oceans through different programs, in order to protect the sea wildlife.

Lerøy Seafood Group's activity is based on sea life and products created in the sea.
70% of the Earth's surface is covered by sea and only 3-5% of the protein we eat currently comes from the ocean. We strongly believe that tomorrow's food will be increasingly sourced from the ocean, and we are therefore concerned with preserving the ocean as an important resource.

Ever-increasing amounts of plastics in the ocean are potentially one of the biggest challenges in the near future. Lerøy Seafood Group has been involved in the process of recovering plastic waste because we consider it to be a very important activity.

What do we do?

  • “Fishing for litter”
  • “The beach-cleaning day”, with prizes for 10 different organisations for collecting plastic from the shoreline
  • Free transport for children who want to take part in plastic collections
  • Retrieving plastic from operations in places that are hard to reach by car
  • Free seafood for many different organisations that participate in plastic collections
Social Impact

“Bare til låns”

Lerøy Seafood Group, in collaboration with waste and recycling company Norsk Gjenvinning, is carrying out a special program dedicated to reusing the aluminum used in the packaging of the products.

“Til Låns” is a project in which Lerøy Seafood Group works together with waste and recycling company Norsk Gjenvinning to ensure that the packaging for products packed in aluminium trays is returned for recycling after use. Such packaging is therefore only “on loan”. Waste is a resource that is not properly utilised, and we aim to do something about this. An extra label will be attached to these products telling the user what to do with the packaging after use. This informative label is meant as a careful nudge in the right direction and is therefore only the first step on the road to ensuring correct processing of packaging. This is an exciting project that is heading in the right direction. We also focus on using the correct packaging and the correct size of products in order to avoid waste.

Lerøy Seafood Group reports according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).