Vebego wants to make a positive impact and actively reduce any negative impact. We deal in a sustainable manner with employees and customers, but also with the environment. We take our responsibility in combating climate change and its consequences. We do not just want that ourselves. Our customers also expect us to contribute concretely to their climate goals. Our goal is that we will work in a CO₂-neutral manner within all of our activities no later than 2030.

Electric vehicle fleet measures

We will be taking various measures in the coming years in areas of focus such as the fleet of vehicles, work clothing and accommodation. Vebego facilitates this sustainability by entering into framework contracts with partners who contribute to our goals and objectives.
From 2022, we are going to accelerate the process of making our leased fleet sustainable by switching to an electric fleet; in the Netherlands, this must be completed by 2025 at the latest. Given that availability of electric cars is under pressure as a result of the coronavirus crisis and the war in Ukraine, we will be implementing these measures in phases over the next two years.
By making the fleet of vehicles sustainable, there will already be a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2025. We have already offset the CO₂ emissions of the entire fleet over 2020 and 2021 through investments in a VCS certified Agroforestry project in India. Through diversification of 500,000 hectares of existing agricultural land, this project will reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 700,000 tonnes.

CO₂ emissions

In 2019 and 2020, we collected a lot of data on our companies’ CO₂ emissions, and in 2021 we used this data to map out Vebego’s CO₂ footprint. Part of the CO₂ roadmap is setting up an adequate, group-wide process for reporting our emissions. We are optimising the current system so that from this next financial year we can report emissions in a timely and reliable manner. The 2021 figures will only be available at the end of May, which is why we only show the figures for 2019-2020 here.

Generic and business specific roadmap

In April 2022, we will be drawing up a generic roadmap based on the information we have gathered over the past two years. This will state which measures Vebego can take to reduce CO₂ emissions, for example in the area of mobility, work clothing and accommodation. If desired, each company can use this generic roadmap to create its own company-specific roadmap, in which the company will indicate which aspects they have under control, and what company-specific measures they are going to take. Based on the specific roadmap, Vebego can provide guidance and assess whether the measures taken are indeed effective in achieving our goal – to work in a fully CO₂ neutral way by 2030.

Work clothing and accommodation

For work clothing, CO₂ neutrality is a requirement for every purchasing process. Together with the companies, we are currently going through a selection process so that over the course of 2023 a CO₂ neutral range of our work clothing will be available.

CO₂ reduction is part of the business case in every decision for (new) accommodation. CO₂ reduction will be an explicit part of the strategic accommodation plan. At a local level, our companies often manage their energy consumption through environmental management systems and have their energy reduction objectives certified according to ISO 140001.

EcoVadis

To be fully CO₂ neutral by 2030, we are asking all our suppliers to work in a CO₂ neutral way. To gain an insight into the CO₂ emissions produced by our suppliers, we are going to work with the Carbon Action Module by EcoVadis. EcoVadis manages a (global) collaboration platform that enables businesses to evaluate their suppliers’ sustainability performance. By 2022, fifty of our top one hundred suppliers need to have the EcoVadis label, for example, and steps have been taken towards further CO₂ reductions with regard to our suppliers’ services.

Our customers consider it important that our CO₂ emissions are certified by an external party. We will therefore be working towards CO₂ certification for our companies over the next few years. The emission quotas and footprint of our cleaning activities will be measured by SGS in the first half of 2022.

Less water consumption, more water elsewhere

We use a lot of water as part of our service. Our companies have established the goal of endeavouring to use one less bucket – 20 litres – of water for each hour of cleaning. We already save water now when cleaning surfaces by selecting innovative materials and techniques. In partnership with MADE BLUE , Vebego has been committed to converting this reduced negative impact into a positive social impact since 2015. Each litre of water that was not used is made available, together with MADE BLUE, as drinking water in developing countries. More than 100 million litres of clean drinking water have now been made available in places in the world where that is most needed.