As an online business Speqta has a limited environmental impact. We are working with determination to find new ways of lowering our footprint with our infrastructure and ongoing operational business. Our most clear environmental impact comes from the servers we use, their energy consumption, and business travel.

Servers: The data centers where Speqta has its own servers, have ongoing environmental work like green power supply, and are certified according to ISO 14001. For those services where we are migrating to a cloud infrastructure, we are using a global supplier with a clear environmentally friendly profile.

Travels: During the COVID pandemic, online video meetings have replaced a large share of our need to travel. Customer and partner meetings are handled to a larger extent over online video. This environmental boosting effort has also made us more efficient as a company. More than 90% of our staff are using commuter transport, walking or bicycle to get to the office or physical meetings. 

Other environmental effects: During 2020 we removed all inbound physical invoices from our suppliers, made digital archives instead of physical, and implemented digital signage which removed the need for printing contracts. We are now handling financial and legal documents faster and more efficiently making us a faster pacing organization. The goal is also to pick as many environmentally certified and KRAV-labeled products for the office when it comes to food and supplies. 

The majority of our products and services are guiding consumers to find better options and make better business. That means that we are helping consumers to save money. The following two business areas were in place during 2021:

Content & Comparison: In this business area we are guiding consumers to make better decisions through comparing options. In today’s society, the amount of information is constantly increasing, leading to a complex world to penetrate in the online world. We are therefore convinced that comparing different actors or suppliers against each other improves the situation for the consumer. In our comparison sites, we for example compare up to 25 different loan providers so that the consumers can get the best rate and conditions as possible. We see that the comparison sites have a natural place in a sustainable society of services, and not the purpose of generating more loan volumes but to support the private economy for those who need it. It is important for us that the consumer is able to make as good a decision as possible, for example when the consumer consolidates loans and gets better terms.

AdTech: A business area where we help e-commerce businesses get traffic to their stores by using the latest technology. E-commerce as a phenomenon has environmental challenges with returns but overall it is positive for society. It is contributing to the opening of new companies not only in Sweden but also in Europe and contributes to enabling the global distribution of goods making the supply for consumers wider. Read more under bullet “6. Active positive contribution”.

Speqta is offering career opportunities in a modern, flexible, stimulating, and healthy environment. In order to grow a knowledge-based company such as Speqta, the art of recruiting, developing, and keeping talents is the main challenge. The “People-work” is not only challenging in terms of recruiting but also in setting and maintaining a strong culture, structure, and clear meaningful routines in a well-functioning organization. This is a crucial area and we have since 2019 had the role Chief People Officer with the goal to develop and improve the HR functionality. In 2021 the role was replaced with a newly recruited Head of People.

Speqta is offering a healthy environment with a good work-life balance. We are convinced that diversity is contributing to innovation and we are proud to have colleagues from different parts of the world that daily are working together to take Speqta to the next level. We are developing our diversified organization with unique competencies where professional qualities are not compromised against other factors such as cultural background, gender, or functional variants. The well-being of the staff of Speqta is highly prioritized, and we are offering external counseling support as an employment benefit. The counseling support includes psychology, economics, legal, and health for private and business-related questions.

In the beginning of 2021, the gender split between men and women was as follows: The whole of Speqta had 70% men and 30% women. In the management team and the board of directors, the split was 70% men and 30% women at the end of the first quarter of 2022. We have the ambition to equalize this split over time, but at the same time ensure that the right person is at the right place regardless of gender. Speqta also has zero tolerance for discrimination and sexual harassment.

We have an ambition to further develop our leaders to support our employees in their growth and ambition to take on responsibility and new roles within the company. Another area we focus on is to clarify roles and responsibilities and goals. We are working to establish a culture where we challenge how we are working today, creativity and innovation is encouraged at the same time as we are establishing our business processes.

We are not running a production facility like a factory. Though there are risks in driving online traffic to e-commerce stores that have production or buying from manufacturers that have production under non-ethical conditions.

In order to maintain our integrity, our system and data security are of a high standard. We are doing routine checks, analyses, tests, and implementing tools to continuously strengthen this security.

Data security is monitored by our designated Data Protection Officer. The work includes a review of our routines, contracts, and other collaborations where we share data with partners, suppliers, and internal processes that govern access to personal data. Speqta was at a good security level and had a correct setup when GDPR was introduced in May 2018 and is acting in accordance with it including the updates made within this directive.

Speqta is not tolerating corruption or bribery under any circumstances and has a policy that regulates this. There have not been any reported cases of bribery or corruption at Speqta at the time point of this writing.

Speqta’s sixth area is about actively contributing to one or more of the UN's sustainable development goals (“Agenda 2030). During 2021 Speqta focused on “Good health and well-being”. We will continue to have the ambition of using our own competence and business to contribute in a positive way to society. We could for example within the area AdTech use our AI to help non-profit organizations to sell more fund-raising products on Google Shopping. These organizations often do not have a large budget or marketing department, which our service Bidbrain could assist them with.