ESG Report for Kemp & Kjær

Updated on January 8, 2024.
Next update by June 30, 2024. We are in a time of major crises affecting the climate, the environment and biodiversity, to name some of the biggest.
It affects us because we want to leave a better world for our children.
That’s why we are preparing for a future with sustainability and ESG on the agenda.

Update January 8, 2024

Since last time:

We have hired two employees, which changes the company and the composition a bit.

We no longer eat a purely vegetarian lunch, but still mostly vegetarian.
There was one return flight in 2023 – in 2022 there were four people on a flight.
In addition, we have increased the weight of ESG-positive efforts in the overall production.

Summary of our ESG reporting

Our own ESG footprint is primarily downstream, i.e. the difference we make for our customers’ business, and thus the increase in the footprint the customer makes. Therefore, we focus on attracting customers that have a positive ESG footprint, for example in the category “B2B Impact Tech”.

“Upstream” we mainly have IT services, media and other consultants, so the footprint is limited compared to downstream.

Direct impact is limited for us as we are a non-manufacturing company with few employees.

What are we currently doing to promote ESG?

Helping spread awareness of technology companies and organizations that contribute to the green transition (although we also have a few customers operating in industries with carbon challenges)
Establish partnerships with companies and organizations working with sustainability
Preparing to report on ESG by 2025
Adhering to ethical code of conduct from industry association
Cycling to and from work all year round
Hold over 90% of meetings digitally
Eating a vegetarian lunch
Working paperless

Where we have challenges with ESG:

We find it difficult to measure our contribution to our customers’ ESG footprint
Our office is part of a shared office space without separate meters for electricity, water and heat, so we have a hard time calculating the actual footprint.
Some customers may not have a positive ESG footprint. But not negatively either.
Our office is in an old building with no modern insulation.
Our private cars run on fossil fuels, but we rarely use them for business.

CO2 calculation via Climate Compass

The calculation includes electricity and heat consumption, electronics purchases and transportation in 2022.

Transportation is by far the biggest cause of CO2 emissions.

One flight to visit our international network accounted for 87% of CO2 emissions in 2022.

CO2 emissions if you buy a public relations project from Kemp Kjær:

An average press effort (10 hours) at Kemp & Kjær in 2022 emitted 9.8 kilos of CO2.
Excluding the company flight (scope 3), an average press event emitted 1.4 kilos of CO2.

What’s not included?

Waste is not included in the calculation and excluded because we 1) it is too difficult to measure, and 2) we work paperless and have very little waste production.

NB: There may be small things that we have overlooked. But we estimate that it is so small that it will not significantly change the result of the calculation on klimakompasset.dk.

Key ESG initiatives

Environment	Social	Governance
Promote impact technology Minimize own emissions	Pro bono consulting	Ethics

ESG report

Our biggest contribution: Helping to advance impact technology

UN Global Compact goal 9.4 to promote sustainable industrialization and support innovation.

Where we can really make a difference is by using our expertise to support the adoption of green technologies.

We’ve been working in PR and strategic communications for technology companies since 2012 and we’ve seen them make a difference in the world and spread the word about them.

New technologies are scalable and can be deployed globally. This is what is needed most if we are to see real change in the world.

That’s why we can make the biggest difference by helping the technology companies that make a tangible difference to the world because it’s part of their DNA. This can be anything from CO2-reducing technology for sugar factories to solar batteries, pasteurization technology and environmental data platforms.

Kemp & Kjær’s work with companies that have a positive impact on the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Several of our customers are working to achieve one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals because they work with what we call “impact tech”. Here is a statistic on how much we have worked for these customers in total.

In 2022, we did not focus specifically on Impact Tech, and we expect the segment to make up a higher share of our activity in 2023.

2023 Impact customer statistics

	NUMBER	SHARE OF OUR PRODUCTION
CUSTOMERS WITH POSITIVE IMPACT	13	32%
NUMBER OF BETS	58	31%
PRESS MENTIONS CREATED	210	51%
POTENTIAL AUDIENCE*	50.000.000	40%

2022 Impact customer statistics

	NUMBER	SHARE OF OUR PRODUCTION
CUSTOMERS IN B2B IMPACT	7	14%
NUMBER OF BETS	13	9%
PRESS MENTIONS CREATED	46	9%
POTENTIAL AUDIENCE*	8.000.000	6%

* “Potential audience” = a figure for how big an audience the media has, not a figure for the number of readers/viewers of the specific mention.

Customers with ESG challenges

2022: We had three customers in the construction and real estate industry in 2022 that represented less than 5% of our revenue. They rank in the better half of the industry in terms of ESG. ESG according to their own data and what we can verify ourselves.

Other customers: We assess that our other customers do not have significant ESG challenges.

Ethics: Don’t play dirty

UN Global Compact Goal 10: Anti-corruption

PR has the potential to cause widespread damage to society through lies, misleading communication, manipulation and smear campaigns – or the ability to generate fake news. That’s why we take extra care to ensure that the PR we do contributes to something positive.

PR is a discipline born out of state propaganda and has a checkered past. The first time the term Public Relations was used and attempted to be professionalized was by Edward Bernays, who used methods we now consider unethical.

Since then, the PR industry has matured significantly – at least in Denmark – and it’s relatively rare that we see unethical behavior in the industry. In recent times, we have seen a few examples, the most common of which are:

Smear campaigns use PR to tarnish the reputation of a customer’s competitor through slander or spreading false rumors, for example.
Payment for positive media coverage without clearly stating that it is sponsored.
Working for customers with conflicting interests without informing them.

At Kemp Kjær, we strongly distance ourselves from methods that are far from our culture and values.

“Transparency” is one of our three core values, and it’s about ensuring that everything we do can withstand the light of day. This means, among other things, that we recommend “walk the talk”, where we ensure that customers communicate things they can back up. This means no half-truths or negative coverage of our customers’ competitors.

We know that strong brands don’t need to use unethical PR and that keeping your path clean wins in the long run.

We also subscribe to the code of ethics of the former industry association, Public Relations Branchen, which has now merged with the industry organization Kreativitet & Kommunikation. But we are not a member.

It is difficult to document compliance with ethical rules. However, an ethical approach to work already takes place when hiring employees, where we include our ESG policy and values as a central part of the process.

In addition, during 2023-2024, we plan to document how we:

Take responsibility for adhering to ethical standards and values
Ensure transparency and integrity in work
Avoids conflicts of interest and ensures objectivity in work.

Opting out of industries

PR can also cause harm to society if it is successfully used to promote ethically questionable, but otherwise legal, businesses. That’s why we turn away potential clients who want us to promote gambling, payday loans or tobacco, for example.

Our climate considerations in 2023

UN Global Compact Goal 13: Climate action.

PR is classic office work, which puts it at the low end of the scale in terms of CO2 emissions. This also limits what we can do, but that doesn’t stop us from doing a little.

What we do:

Cycling to and from work all year round
Hold over 90% of meetings digitally
Eating a vegetarian lunch
Working paperless
Recycle electronics (see picture from event at Lokomotivværkstedet)

Where are we lagging?

We rent office space with a number of other companies in an old building that needs to be better insulated, and we sometimes drive to meetings in gasoline cars and occasionally travel by plane to visit our international network (this has happened three times in 10 years).

This is difficult to address without sacrificing efficiency and/or increasing costs, which can negatively impact the company’s ability to generate profit and create results for our customers.

But as we get ready to report on ESG in the annual report, we hope to identify where we can further reduce CO2 without significantly impacting our ability to do business.

Next steps in ESG efforts

ESG reporting brings with it a range of considerations beyond climate and environment, especially social initiatives, ethics and governance.

An important step for us is to introduce ESG reporting in our financial statements and we will have this in place by the 2024 financial statements at the latest.

In addition, we will expand our network with companies and organizations that make a difference and become more familiar with the UN SDGs and Danish and EU policies in this area.

Upcoming updates to this report:

Add a section on our pro-bono work.
Add company policy on work-life balance.
Add considerations for prioritising specific global SDG’s – and omitting others.

We will update this page at least every six months.

Also read our overview of grant schemes and support schemes from green funds in Denmark and the EU.