Sustainability Report 2020

Through a challenging and demanding year, we continue in pursuit of delivering on our purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has had the dramatic effect of exposing both strengths and weaknesses in our societies. As the situation has progressed, it has also highlighted the importance of the role that companies play, beyond their products, solutions and services, in the communities they serve.

It was an honour to have been chosen as CEO in October 2020. Since then, I have felt an ever-increasing sense of pride, not just in the purpose of our company, but in the contributions all Grundfos’ employees make every day to solve the world’s water and climate challenges and improve the quality of life for people.

Poul Due Jensen, CEO & Group President.

Read the full CEO letter in the report.

The report is structured around the three core pillars of our purpose and the main changes we want to drive as a business: Water, Climate and People.

Water

51% reduction

We reached our goal to halve our own water withdrawal with a 51% reduction compared to 2008 baseline.

1.5 billion m³ water 

The pumps that we sold in 2020 enabled our end-users to reuse over 1.5 billion m³ water per year (the equivalent to approx. 600,000 Olympic size pools).

Climate

35% reduction

In 2020, we reduced 35% of our waste to landfill compared to 2019.

10 billion kWh

Our high-efficiency circulator pumps in the EU have enabled our customers to save around 10 billion kWh (the equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 6.2 million European citizens). 

People

3.1% of our global workforce 

Currently, 3.1% of our employees are in reduced work capacity employment. The goal is to reach 5% by 2025.

60,000 people

Our employee engagement programme, Water2Life, celebrates its 10th anniversary and has been providing basic water access to about 60,000 people.

Our solutions may not be visible in plain sight, but we are everywhere

Accountability

We have a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and our Code of Conduct details our commitment to this. 

Just as we stipulate standards of ethical practice for ourselves in our CoC, we have a Supplier Code of Conduct (SCoC) that establishes related requirements for all our suppliers and covers such sustainability issues as environmental impact, health and safety and corporate ethics.