Sustainability at Highsoft – Announcing membership to the Global Compact initiative

We are happy to announce that Highsoft recently became a member of the Global Compact, the largest voluntary initiative for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This is an important step towards formalizing our work on CSR and we are proud to be a part of the Global Compact network.
As a member of the Global Compact, Highsoft commits to support the ten principles on Human Rights, Labour, the Environment and Anti-Corruption that is the backbone of the Global Compact.

In becoming a member of the Global Compact, we enter a new phase in our work on sustainability. Below is a summary of our efforts so far.

STAKEHOLDER RELATIONSHIPS

We strive towards being the best organization we can be, not only to our customers, but also for our employees, the local community and the environment. Highsoft’s attitude towards CSR is that it should be reflected in everything we do, including our day-to-day operations. We are confident that being socially and environmentally responsible has both internal benefits such as motivated and dedicated employees, and external benefits in terms of increased competitiveness.

We are proud to say that Highsoft provides several benefits to our employees, such as flexible working hours, insurance, an office treadmill and a focus on a good social environment.

We encourage our team to be more active in an otherwise static workday. This spring, our team was participating in Dytt.no, an 8-week program where we “walked across the North Pole” by measuring our level of activity on a pedometer. This summer, the team got passes to “Fjelltrimmen”, a local initiative to do ten hikes in the local area. This both supports the local initiative, encourages the Highsoft team to be active and get to know our beautiful surroundings.

In numbers, Highsoft has an equal gender ratio. In fact, per October 1^st 2015, the majority of employees are women. We believe this is quite exceptional for a software company. We also have a strong belief in young labour, making the average age of our team 33,1 years.

The local community is important for Highsoft and we sponsor a wide range of groups and activities in Vik, and are one of the main sponsors in the sports club ‘Vik IL’.

Moreover, Highsoft supports local businesses by purchasing the supplies we can from local providers. Our main responsibility towards the local community is creating employment and partake in making Vik i Sogn an attractive place to live and work. Our focus is on inviting students to take their placement with us, both from secondary-, upper-secondary school and higher education.

We would not be the organization we are today, had it not been for our customers. Since the beginning, we have had an open source code. We believe this strengthens the relationship with our users, as potential customers can use our software before deciding whether to purchase.

All enhancements made to our software are based on customer feedback. Further, we offer non-commercial, free licenses to non-profits, private users, students and public schools, and provide discounts to startups.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

The Source Code, all customer contact and license documents are offered electronically, keeping printing and paper waste at a minimum. This also means that we do not ship anything to our customers, making environmental hazards in regards to transportation extremely low, especially considering our international customer base.

Our office policy is to switch off all electronic devices when leaving the office, ensuring efficient use of electricity. Further, the source of our electricity is renewable hydropower, which is the main source of electricity in our region of Norway.

Four out of thirteen employees drives electric cars, which we think is an awesome ratio, and because of our location, several of our employees can walk to work.

As we continue our work on the ten principles of the Global Compact, we look back in pride on the work we have already done, but acknowledge that CSR is a long-term commitment and look forward to the next steps.