Sustainability

Overview

Senzime’s objective for 2022 was to formulate an overall sustainability agenda and longer-term aspirations. We determined priorities to map our environmental impact, set a baseline and targets for coming years, and extend collaborations with partners, including our commitment to human rights. We reviewed our Code of Conduct on the basis of standards including the UN Global Compact, and produced a dedicated Partner Code of Conduct for distributors, suppliers and other business partners.

These two Codes set a framework for how Senzime conducts business on a responsible and sustainable footing. Senzime also focused on education and training in 2022, conducting training programs and workshops, including materiality assessments for the Board, Senior Management and key corporate functions.

Senzime has also created a sustainability core team, tasked with driving sustainability work onwards and ensuring continuous improvement. This team has representatives from all key functions and consists of management team members.

UN Global Compact

Advancing sustainable development and striving towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals is a component of Senzime’s strategy. Senzime’s vision of improving health care and people’s well-being also makes sustainability a natural part of our strategy. This is why Senzime has joined the UN Global Compact and committed to its Ten Principles on Human Rights, Labour, Anti-corruption and Environment.

Materiality assessment and stakeholder analysis

We conducted a materiality assessment in the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) in the year to identify sustainability risk and opportunities end to end in our value chain. It enabled Senzime to set key priorities for its sustainability agenda, identifying the fundamental improvements and opportunities for our stakeholders, our commitment to the UN Global Compact, and our environmental impact.

Our key stakeholders include investors, customers, patients, and partners. Continuous improvement and progression based on our stakeholder dialogues, commitments and mission is a top priority.

Senzime’s key ESG priorities include product development, the environment, as well as people & partners, which are all equally important in enabling us to execute our strategy, be successful and make progress on our commitments.

Product development

Senzime’s product offering is key to enabling us to deliver on our mission to reduce patient complications, improve healthcare and save lives. This makes product development a major priority, and Senzime develops systems in close collaboration with customers, based on patient needs. In 2022, we launched a new disposable sensor for children, bringing this patient group access to accurate monitoring for anesthesia. Senzime launched a total of five new products and features in 2022.

Senzime collaborates closely with scientific and clinical advisory boards whose members are key opinion leaders from preeminent university and research hospitals, who ensure that product development incorporates all aspects of user and patient needs in the R&D process.

Our collaborations with key partners such as Fukuda Denshi and Masimo Inc. further improve access to our monitoring solutions. These agreements will enable us to develop solutions for embedding our technology in our partners’ monitors.

So, we can be agile, leveraging in-house knowledge in the development process, production and sourcing are important steps to satisfy the standards set fully. In the past year, we insourced production of our TetraGraph system to our facility in Uppsala, Sweden. The production of the ExSpiron 2Xi system is also being validated currently.

Securing full control over manufacturing, packaging and transportation also enables us to reduce our climate footprint—steps our materiality analysis identified as areas for improvement.

Quality and safety

Senzime aims to maintain the highest quality and safety standards for all our product users. Our systems are the gold standard, and based on the latest technology, so the highest quality is crucial for reliability and patient safety.

Product complaints are a key indicator of product quality. In 2022, the total number of complaints relating to the TetraGraph system decreased by 51 percent on the previous year, and the average number of days to close was also down, by 31 percent.

Senzime added the ExSpiron monitoring system to its product portfolio in the third quarter. Based on available data, the average complaint rate for ExSpiron 1Xi is 13.4 percent for the last five years, and 9.4 percent for ExSpiron 2Xi for the last two years.

Environment

Senzime is committed to reducing its environmental impact, and in 2022, initiated extensive work on identifying environmental impact end to end in our value chain. This stage identified key issues, risks and opportunities. For 2023, our aim is to reduce energy consumption, emissions and waste and to start to measure and set targets for our climate footprint.

One important step in this work is the implementation of an environmental management system (EMS), which will help us work systematically on these issues. Our goal is to be ISO 14001 certified by mid-2023. Measurable environmental goals within the scope of certification and based on the materiality assessment conducted in the fall of 2022 will be set in the first half of 2023.

Environmental aspects and a life-cycle management approach are important to the development process. We are endeavoring to reduce packaging, optimize transportation, and use sustainable materials. We have already optimized the packaging of TetraGraph and TetraSens, which have reduced transportation volumes by 50 percent for TetraGraph and approximately 30 percent for TetraSens.

To reduce the environmental impact of shipping processes, we reviewed the waste management of goods packaging. This cut our use of cardboard by 40 percent and eliminated plastic from the packaging we use for shipping.

We will take more initiatives in 2023, setting targets for waste management, shipping, transportation, and packaging.

Supply chain

Senzime is a health care equipment provider, but relies on external suppliers for the manufacture of monitors and disposables. Senzime needs to ensure that all components and constituent materials satisfy the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) Directive, which is designed to reduce risks to people’s health and the environment by replacing and limiting hazardous chemical compounds in electrical and electronic equipment. Senzime avoids animal testing unless required by law or regulatory processes. Other important directives and regulations impacting our manufacturing processes are the Global Packaging, WEEE and Battery Directives.

Senzime aims to purchase from suppliers that are local or located close to manufacture, which helps reduce transportation and delivery lead-times. We select suppliers and collaborative partners carefully, evaluating them yearly. Our evaluation focuses on metrics capturing finance, delivery precision, performance, quality, and sustainability. Insourcing TetraGraph’s manufacturing has had a positive impact on our environmental footprint.

Transportation and shipping

As a global company with direct sales in Germany and the US, plus close partnerships with distributors in other key markets, Senzime is dependent on transportation, and its partners’ commitment to reducing environmental impact. The initial analysis of Senzime’s EMS implementation identified several areas of opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact. Further mapping will be conducted in 2023, including an analysis of transportation and shipping routines, to set a target for reducing CO₂ emissions.

People and partners

People are Senzime’s most valuable resource, and the company endeavors to attract the right skills by being an attractive workplace. Its starting point is that all employees must be treated equally and have the same opportunities for personal development, regardless of their background or individual differences. Senzime has zero tolerance of human rights violations, and expects its employees and business partners to uphold the same high standards by complying with our Code of Conduct, Partner Code of Conduct and local legislation.

Gender equality and diversity

At Senzime, we value gender equality and diversity (DEI) highly. We don’t tolerate any form of discrimination, and DEI has been a Management agenda priority for several years. Senzime has executed a range of programs, as corroborated by its performance in the Allbright Report of 2022. Allbright is a non-profit foundation working for gender equality and equal opportunities in top management positions. Allbright’s yearly report ranks Sweden’s listed companies according to the division between men and women in senior managements and boards. This year, Senzime ranked 14th out of 361 companies evaluated.

In 2023, Senzime will be taking more action to broaden inclusion and remain an attractive employer.

Occupational health and safety

Each year Senzime conducts an employee satisfaction survey to monitor and evaluate the company’s working environment and identify areas of improvement. The response rate this year was 98 percent (100), and employee commitment was 8.9 (8.85). Although the results are strong and validate Senzime’s efforts, it is important that our people play an active role in our corporate development. Accordingly, working groups will set actions to address the issues raised in the survey.

Governance/ethical business

Senzime is committed to conducting business responsibly and ethically. Its Code of Conduct and Partner Code of Conduct set a framework for how Senzime does business that its partners are expected to comply with. Senzime has in-house sales organizations in Germany and the US, but partners with distributors on other key markets. Senzime expects its employees and partners, including suppliers, distributors, and other business partners, to uphold the same high standards, and as an absolute minimum, comply with local legislation on human rights, anti-corruption, labor law and the environment. To ensure Senzime’s business partners share the values stated in the Partner Code of Conduct, Senzime will be implementing a process to screen and evaluate partners from a sustainability perspective.

To ensure compliance, and that partners share the same values as Senzime, all business partners are expected to sign its Partner Code of Conduct. For 2023, our goal is for 50 percent of our suppliers of direct material and services to have signed our Partner Code of Conduct. We also expect all new suppliers to sign up when appointed. We’re targeting full compliance of distributors by mid-2023.

We’re also encouraging stakeholders, including partners, to report suspected breaches and areas of improvement through our whistleblower function.