Nemetschek Group Sustainability Report: Design, Build & Manage Sustainably

Our Sustainability Report for 2022 was published end of March 2023. Find the opening interview I conducted with the CSR team for the report below, offering the Nemetschek Group 's view on several key questions around increasing sustainability in the global #construction industry.

Mr. Padrines, how would you summarize the year 2022 in terms of sustainability – globally, for the construction industry and for the Nemetschek Group?

Yves Padrines: Our world is changing and global trends such as climate change, digitalization, urbanization, globalization and demographic change involve both opportunities and risks for our planet and all the species that live on it. Let's take the construction industry as an example. It is currently one of the largest consumers of global resources, but in the future, it can make a major contribution to reducing the global CO2 footprint. It also has the power to make people's lives more worth living. We at Nemetschek have always seen sustainability as a great opportunity, because digitalization is an important key to making the industry as a whole, but especially the construction industry in which we are operating, more sustainable. With our digital solutions, buildings and infrastructure can be designed, built, and operated more resource-efficiently – and thus more sustainably.

Like many other companies, the Nemetschek Group is also confronted with increasing sustainability regulations. How do you deal with these?

Yves Padrines: First of all, the Nemetschek Group and also I personally very much support the stronger focus on sustainability. This is the only way to go into the future. In particular, the implementation of the EU Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is a big challenge for us as well as for other companies, but it provides very important specific disclosure requirements and guidelines and will definitely lead to greater transparency in the area of sustainability. For us, the CSRD means that we continue on our chosen path of sustainability, but we also need to show more of what we are currently doing and plan to do in the near future. This will be a challenge, but these challenges also bring enormous opportunities. By linking economic, environmental, and social aspects even more closely in corporate reporting and also, for example, when managing opportunities and risks, new and valuable perspectives will emerge in strategy processes.

How would you describe your current disclosures compared to what will be required of you from 2024?

Yves Padrines: I would say that we are on a very good path. We have already been conducting a materiality analysis every two years since 2017, identifying the sustainability issues that have a significant impact on our company, but also the issues through which we, as a company, impact the environment, our stakeholders, and society in general. We then work on these issues in our day-to-day business. For example, I believe our compliance structures, including a whistleblowing procedure, a code of conduct for employees, and a code of conduct for suppliers, are industry leading. In addition, last year we published our sustainability report in line with the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative and also implemented the provisions of the EU Taxonomy Regulation in the company. Nevertheless, we are on a challenging journey to implement the CSRD requirements.

Where is there still room for improvement?

Yves Padrines: In this Sustainability Report for 2022, we will publish the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of our carbon footprint for the Nemetschek Group for the first time. We intend to expand it to include Scope 3 emissions in the course of 2023. Based on these figures, we will subsequently develop our climate journey and targets. Our sustainability governance structure is also currently set up in a rather simple way and will be expanded in 2023 to meet the multitude of new regulations and requirements of our stakeholders.

What role does the software portfolio play in your sustainability concept?

Yves Padrines: We basically take on two roles when it comes to sustainability: On the one hand, our company and the way we do business is an industry role model, and on the other hand, we are an enabler for our customers. Our software solutions help them to plan, construct, operate and manage buildings more efficiently and thus more sustainably. For the year under review, we evaluated both the construction industry and our portfolio from the point of view of sustainability and confirmed the result: the Nemetschek Group is both a role model and an enabler.

What does that mean exactly?

Yves Padrines: When it comes to sustainability, we distinguish between two approaches in the area of saving harmful greenhouse gases: we want to improve the "handprint" of our customers with our solutions, because through the use of digital technologies buildings can be planned, built, and operated more efficiently and sustainably. In addition, we want to reduce our own footprint, i.e., our own CO2 emissions. Carbon management is our first step in becoming aware of the impact we as a company have on society and the environment. To reduce our own environmental footprint, we have decided to go one step further and calculate the Group's CO2 emissions. We will then use this as a basis to determine the next steps and then take them consistently.

Why is your role as an enabler in the construction industry so important?

Yves Padrines: Our solutions can have a major impact on the sustainability of the industry through certain features and/or partnerships which help our customers to design, build, and operate more sustainably. This is what we call the "handprint" of our customers; that is, what they do with our solutions and what impact our solutions have on the lifecycle of buildings and what savings can be achieved with our solutions. Our goal is to help our customers create a more sustainable world.