At Seco, we aim to make manufacturing fast, easy and sustainable across our entire value chain. An important part of this is setting ambitious targets on our operations to drive environmental and social sustainability at the core of our manufacturing.
Seco has committed to significant goals: achieving 90% circular waste by 2030, Net-Zero operations by 2035, enhanced supplier documentation, reduced footprint, and a safe, healthy and inclusive workplace embedded in our work culture and environment. While all these areas are vital, it can be challenging for local operational sites to understand the full picture of sustainability, to understand their current position, how they align with Seco’s global ambitions, and where to begin or focus their efforts. When Seco’s sustainability strategy was launched, areas such as health and safety were already well-integrated at many sites, while areas like circularity and Net-Zero presented new challenges requiring new approaches.
In 2021, an idea was proposed: the Industrial Sustainability Assessment – a tool designed for Seco’s production units to assess their current sustainability level across all areas, making it easier to prioritize and identify actions toward effective and impactful improvements. The assessment defines six levels, starting from Level 1, which typically means meeting the minimum requirements from a legal perspective, up to Level 6, which represents best practices or end goal. Levels 2 to 5 provide structured, progressive steps a site can take to move toward Level 6.
This assessment covers the key focus areas of:
- People and Communities: assessing a broad range of areas from traditional Health & Safety, to Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity to key aspects of Working Environment and Community Involvement.
- Climate Biodiversity and Circularity: assessing areas related to Resources, Emissions and Waste.
- Site Specific: looking at how sustainability is integrated into production, the facilities, overall site building, infrastructure and how the site works with development.
- Suppliers: how the site manages supplier responsibility at the local level.
Throughout 2021 and 2022, this way of working was co-developed with sites in Sweden and the Netherlands, along with input from other global sites, to ensure it was created for the sites, by the sites, translating sustainability into practical terms for those who would later use the tool.
In 2023, the first version of the tool was rolled out in Excel for all production sites. However, user feedback made it clear that a more efficient solution was needed. As a result, a project was launched to digitize the tool in MyPages, creating a more streamlined and user-friendly experience.
Since 2024, the Sustainability Assessment Tool has supported our sites tracking progress towards Seco’s global sustainability goals. It addresses key challenges such as understanding a site’s current sustainability performance, setting priorities for improvement, tracking progress over time, and enabling the sharing of best practices across sites. The tool is compatible with mobile devices and allows sites to create action plans focusing on key improvement areas. It also provides an overview of each site’s progress across social, environmental and strategic areas of sustainability.
Seco has now initiated work to explore the potential for an externally adapted version of the tool for stakeholders and customers who may also find this approach relevant. If you are interested, please get in touch with:
- Adrian Cox, Head of Global Quality Assurance, adrian.cox@secotools.com
- Shaelyn Meyers, Sustainability and Environmental Specialist, Shaelyn.meyers@secotools.com
- Tove Jensen, Sustainability & EHS coordinator, tove.jensen@secotools.com
For the latest innovations and cutting-edge products, visit www.secotools.com.
