Arendalsuka 2023: Highlights from the Factlines team

From August 14 to 18, Arendal is the best place in the world for conversations about innovation and sustainability. Our team not only hosted two events of our own (read more), but also participated in exciting debates and developed our expertise in increasing transparency in production and supply chains.
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One of the key takeaways from this year's Arendalsuka is the many conversations around the urgent need to accelerate the NetZero transition. In this blog post, we'll share some of our thoughts on this;


Stakeholder dialog
Although the green energy transition is promising, there are many challenges. Not least in the areas of responsible and nature-friendly production, human and social rights and business ethics. Issues such as corruption, human rights violations and security threats against activists and journalists are more relevant than ever. It is clear that the Norwegian Transparency Act is a progressive move that addresses some of these concerns, and underlines the urgent need to strengthen dialogue with stakeholders and promote broader collaboration.

Measuring business impact
Understanding a company's true sustainability footprint is crucial. This requires not only internal ownership, ensuring employees play active roles in day-to-day operations and strategy formation, but also consistent tracking. By using accurate metrics, training and tools, companies can maintain a holistic view of their sustainability goals, ensuring that they both improve what exists and have a plan, or plans, for greater transformation where needed.

Interdependence and global collaboration
Addressing global issues requires international cooperation, especially when navigating challenges from countries with restrictive governance, such as China. It is not enough to make cascading demands down the chain of accountability when actions and strategies require larger societal changes. Will we be able to formulate policies that uphold human rights and environmental values, all while promoting open discourse between nations? A tall order.

Technology, innovation and sustainability
Collaboration is key to addressing global challenges - from climate change to food security. Joining forces across the private and public sectors, academia and NGOs can accelerate technological innovation. A focused approach with defined success criteria and meaningful engagement with local communities can provide solutions to real problems.

Arendalsuka 2023 was an excellent opportunity to engage in conversations about making the NetZero transition faster and more efficient. A big question we were left with was how different actors should work to find the good solutions to realize enough renewable energy while respecting and strengthening human and social rights. The challenges are many; production conditions to produce crucial components and materials, production strategy (can it be true that Norway wants deep sea mining? It seems risky), land use to name just a few important aspects. To answer that, we all need to find new suppliers, ways of working and build new relationships based on accurate information.

"For Factlines, it is important to be at Arendalsuka to understand how important actors, both political, organizations and businesses think. We have been working with ethical and social requirements in the supply chain on behalf of customers for almost ten years, and we see how important it is to be able to provide customers with good information, good facts about the real chains and production conditions. Now with a lot of new regulation, such as the Transparency Act, CSRD, CSDDD that reduces the risk for companies that take the cost of doing this right, a lot can happen. We look forward to the work ahead, building Factlines to become a European company in this field," says Siri Engesæth, CEO of Factlines. .

Here at Factlines, we are dedicated to helping companies in their journey towards a sustainable transition. We offer solutions that are process-oriented in line with the OECD guidelines and fact-oriented to provide direct business benefit in scenario and strategy work going forward.