Our Annual Report 2017

A letter from Sustainability Hub Norway's Executive Chairman, on the organization's ambitious journey during 2017. 

Dear friends,

Sustainability is a vague word. The task at hand is big. But why we set up Sustainability Hub Norway is easy: to bring those working in sustainability together to inspire, learn and stay up to date. Our community has a practical approach to the big promises states and companies made with the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agenda.

Launched in March 2017, we focused this year on understanding sustainability in Norway, building the community and sharing knowledge.

We launched a report on the State of Sustainability in Norway 2017, executed and written by our former Editor Pia Lefevre. Key findings showed that the typical Norwegian sustainability employee does not usually have a formal education in sustainability, does not usually have budgetary decision-making power and experiences work capacity within their team as their biggest sustainability challenge.

We hosted larger inspirational events on measuring and reporting sustainability, showcasing concrete examples that combine theory with practice, seminars on sustainability in practice, and we co-hosted events at the Katapult Future Fest in May in Oslo, EAT Forum in June in Stockholm, Arendalsuka in August in Arendal. Generating a lot of interest for each event, it quickly became clear to us that people needed this community - also to dig deeper down into the sustainability matter.

People also needed conversations so we hosted Circles, smaller round table conversations, to address for example how communications directors best can communicate sustainability and workshops with UN Global Compact on the impact of the SDGs. These smaller conversations are creating the change the larger conversations originally inspired.

Our website showcases the latest events helping people to plan better and companies market events. The job portal gathers positions to be filled within sustainability and this has gotten a lot of attention. Our monthly newsletter reaches more than 500 sustainability professionals and decision makers and helps our community stay updated, while our Facebook community encourages online and offline conversations, as well as recommended readings. 

Individuals, executives and companies have guided us on the way, shown great interest and provided very valuable feedback. The timing was right for S-HUB. To accelerate sustainable business in Norway, people and companies needed this community. And the community needed them because it is founding partners such as Storebrand and Samfunnsviterne, the leading members such as Statkraft and H&M and all our other corporate partners and dedicated individuals that have made S-HUB possible. Thank you. 

Sustainability Hub Norway's Goals

​With the trends we are seeing, we are planning the following in 2018:

​Experimenting less, cementing more: We have learnt what worked and what needs to improve. We are planning three to four bigger inspirational events with external speakers to raise our understanding and knowledge of sustainability in Norway, while continuing to host smaller conversations that create change. 

We will run the State of Sustainability report again and be able to show how the sector is changing. Moving outside of Oslo and reaching out to stakeholders in Bergen and Trondheim, making S-HUB a truly national organization.

Thank you again for joining us on this journey, to the board and all the crowd-founders working hard to help Norway reach the SDGs.
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Best Regards, 

Andreas Friis Co-Founder & Executive Chairman Sustainability Hub Norway

S-HUB ANNUAL REPORT 2017