The Bonnier Group has identified five areas that are central to our work with sustainability and being of long-term benefit to society.

Sustainability issues are primarily driven within our subsidiaries. Responsibility should be close to where they do business.

Bonnier feels a special responsibility to ensure our society is more open, interesting, entertaining and well-informed.
It is within our core business that we can be most beneficial when it comes to sustainability. The journalism, storytelling and knowledge services that our companies develop contribute to freely formed opinions and provide a diversity of perspectives.
Through inclusive urban development, we also create more secure communities and pleasant spaces that encourage people to meet. An open and pluralistic public dialog is the foundation for democracy.

1. Freedom of Speech

Our operations should contribute to strengthening freedom of speech and the press, to a transparent, open and inclusive society where public debate and culture are available for as many as possible.

Our ambition is to continue to be the company in Northern Europe that is most associated with a free press and independent book publishing. Bonnier should be Sweden’s leading advocate for widespread freedom of speech and for a free press.

The independence of the publisher is a fundamental principle for Bonnier’s media. The independent journalism of Bonnier’s media is guaranteed primarily by a clear line from the owners, with a strong culture and tradition characterized by respect for editorial independence and for editorial leadership’s unrestricted power over publishing decisions and for the value of widespread free speech.

When it comes to free speech, newspapers work every day in the name of freedom of expression. As the Nordic region’s leading media company, we help citizens and organizations to function in a democratic society. Our journalists report on, investigate and explain the issues of our time.

Freedom of expression and protecting free speech are at the heart of Bonnier News’ operations and are the single most important focus area in the company’s sustainability strategy. Since February 2022, the war in Ukraine has set the agenda for a large part of newspaper reporting. At the same time, news desks have continued their efforts in covering climate change, and reporting and investigating in those regions within Sweden that Bonnier News’ local newspapers cover. In 2022, the slogan Empowering Free Speech was at the heart of Bonnier News’ new brand, with the goal of clarifying the identity.

Free speech is also the cornerstone of the publishing activities of the book publishers within Bonnier Books. They publish work by authors criticized for their opinions. Our book publishers stand behind authors’ – and everyone else’s – right to freedom of speech.

We strongly believe that books and reading contribute to a more sustainable world. Reading offers new perspectives and the opportunity to form one’s own opinion, which is how it helps lay the foundation for democracy. In our broad catalog of published books, we promote different voices that reflect those communities where we do business.

Digitalization makes books available to even more people, for example the audiobooks provided by BookBeat, and is a natural step in the continuation of sharing stories.

For Bonnier Fastigheter, freedom of speech and an open society are the basis for planning and developing properties and neighborhoods.

Freedom of expression and an open environment should also be hallmarks of our internal company culture. We see an open society and free speech as crucial sustainability issues. It is here that Bonnier has great opportunities to make a difference. It is also here where we can have the biggest impact.

2. Environmental and Resource Efficiency

Giiven our broad business portfolio, there are significant differences among our companies when it comes to climate impact. Each company is charged with minimizing its direct climate impact in the value chain through suitable environmental efforts.

Global and local challenges together with environmental and climate impact affect all companies. All of Bonnier’s companies should – beyond following relevant international and local environmental regulations and standards – be characterized by a smart and effective use of physical and financial resources, such as employees’ time.

Responsibility for continuously finding ways to improve work through environmental and resource efficiencies should be as close to the business, products and services as possible, not micromanaged by us as owners.

Since 2021, Bonnier Books and Bonnier News have been part of the Science Based Targets Initiative, a partnership among the CDP, United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and WWF, which assesses and approves whether a company’s climate goals are in line with the Paris Agreement.

Since 2020, Bonnier Fastigheter and Adlibris have reported emissions of greenhouse gases based on the GHG Protocol. Between first measurements in 2018 through to 2022, Bonnier Fastigheter reduced its greenhouse gas emissions in Scope 1 and 2 by 64 percent, and reduced its use of energy by 20 percent.

The most recent energy audit according to Swedish Law (2014:266) On Energy Audits In Large Enterprises was carried out for the Bonnier Group in 2020. Audits should be done at least every fourth year following the previous audit.

More information about our companies’ climate efforts is available on their individual websites. More about their individual efforts is available here, including links to specific efforts.

3. Diversity

Bonnier strongly believes in individual ability and the power of the individual. Through journalism, storytelling and knowledge, we want to strengthen the individual’s opportunity to influence and change things.

In order to understand, portray and reach the people who make up our society, all the employees who contribute to developing our services and products must represent a range of different perspectives.

Within Bonnier, individuals with widely different backgrounds and experience should be able to develop and contribute from their perspectives to create tomorrow’s services and storytelling. Our strong belief in the power of the individual, freedom and opportunity and in an open society means that we expect our companies to work for diversity, fairness and inclusion.

Bonnier strives to offer employees good career and development opportunities and an interesting and welcoming working environment. Central to this is creating fair career opportunities, that do not give advantages or disadvantages based on irrelevant factors such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religion. Our companies should contribute to an inclusive society where more people can participate.

The companies within Bonnier Books actively work with diversity in their book catalogs as well as among employees. Literature reflects as well as shapes culture and society, and book publishers have great influence over which voices are heard or not. Diversity in publishing is a must, in order to be relevant for a large group of people.

It means that many perspectives must be represented among employees in order to discover the new and best stories. Bonnier Books UK has an ambitious action plan for diversity and inclusion to ensure that employees and the books published better represent British society.

As active members of BBC Allies, Bonnier Books UK uses the RIVERS framework to go from words to action. The framework is based on six pillars – Renew, Invest, Value, Employer, Reward and Sponsorship & Mentoring – which provide tools for driving change.

Bonnierförlagen focuses on diversity from three perspectives: workforce, publishing list and readers. The perspectives are seen as central and in many ways, dependent on each other. Diversity and inclusion are also one of the three main areas within Bonnierförlagen’s strategic sustainability efforts.

Diversity and inclusion are one of four overall focus areas in Bonnier News’ sustainability strategy. In 2021, long-term efforts based on competence and business acumen were launched. The same year, the issue was added to the employee survey. The following year, “embracing our differences and valuing diversity in working groups” was one of the survey questions that was found to have improved the most.

At news desks, language was identified as key to improving journalistic efforts and the number of multi-lingual employees increased.

At the end of 2022, 52 percent of employees within the Bonnier Group were women and 48 percent men. In the Group’s executive management teams, 43 percent were women and 57 percent men.

4. Our Employees

Bonniers’s growth as a company is dependent on being able to attract skilled employees, offer stimulating work assignments and a good working environment where employees can grow and develop.

We work within industries undergoing rapid change. Big changes mean opportunities to grow but make high demands on employees at all levels in the company, creating risk for psychosocial ill-health and stress. Bonnier in general has a limited risk for workplace injuries. Within Bonnier, the responsibility for a good, healthy and safe working environment is firmly rooted in each company. There is, primarily among the Swedish operations, a well-developed cooperation and common platform for human-resources work.

The daily work deals in part with following up on indications of risk and acting on these, in part with creating common support systems and methods for sharing knowledge. Employee surveys are undertaken regularly within the companies in order to identify areas of improvement at the workplace.

In 2022, the Bonnier Group had 8,315 employees, of which 3,026 were outside Sweden. The operations within Bonnier News and Bonnier Books have the most employees. Employees are evenly divided between women and men, 52 percent women and 48 percent men.

5. Responsible Management

Bonnier is a family-owned company with a distinctly long-term perspective in its way of working and running its business operations. The owners’ influence is asserted formally through the Board of Directors as well as in the company culture.

Clear and engaged owners are an advantage for Bonnier’s businesses. The values of the owners and the history are valuable tools for creating a culture that is attractive for employees and a context for our different businesses.

We consider sustainability and responsibility in our acquisitions and divestments, and we do not invest in businesses that conflict with Bonnier’s core values.

As a family-owned group, we are eager to ensure that our companies act from a long-term perspective, and do not risk Bonnier’s image through shortsightedness. This is embodied in our companies having ethical guidelines that are clear and well-understood by employees, whistle-blowing systems that function well, and processes for correctly dealing with breaches of the guidelines.

A challenge for Bonnier as owner of a decentralized group with an extensive mandate for local executive management teams is finding the right balance between overall principles and local application.

Each company within Bonnier should follow Bonnier’s Code of Conduct as well as a number of other governance documents within areas such safety and IT security, data protection, anti-corruption, trade sanctions, auditing, taxes and whistleblowing. Policy documents are complemented with instructions and manuals that provide guidance for applying the policies.

The Bonnier Group has a central whistleblowing service, where reports are made through an external web-based service and received by the Board Chair for the Bonnier Group AB as well as an outside attorney. It is possible to make anonymous reports and even to have a report handled solely by an outside attorney, if the person making the report requests it.

Read about sustainability at our subsidiary companies

Go to the Sustainability main page

Read about the family and company history at bonniersfamiljestiftelse.se (in Swedish)