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Recognition, praise and new initiatives from H. Daugaard's CEO Managing Director
"The past year has taught us that we can adapt if we have to. That's why we are now accelerating a number of initiatives within green transition, digitalization and the organization." - Michael Frihagen, Adm. Director at H. Daugaard.
2021 will be the year of big changes
As we enter the early days of 2021, I'd like to start with a realization. Over the years, it has taken far too long for me and the organization to move from talk to action when new initiatives have been discussed. This is especially true when it comes to digitalization.
Although 2020 is in many ways a year we would have preferred not to have had, it has also been a year where we have been forced to think in new ways and which has been filled with lessons learned. At H. Daugaard , we will strive to take full advantage of these lessons in 2021, where a number of new initiatives will benefit you.
Before I get into the details of the changes we will be rolling out, I want to take this opportunity to say thank you. I want to thank you for the way you have handled the obvious challenges that full and partial community shutdowns have brought. It has been a pleasure to see how we have been able to stay in touch with you virtually, even though we miss meeting you in person.
I would also like to say a big thank you to our employees. It has been simply amazing to see how they have handled the situation. I must honestly admit that I have been skeptical about the idea of working from home, but at no point during 2020 have we registered a decrease in productivity - quite the opposite. So to a certain extent, volunteer work from home is here to stay at H. Daugaard, and I see it as an important tool in the effort to achieve a good work-life balance.
Aggressive sustainability targeting
One of the top items on the agenda in 2021 is sustainability. My clear position is that the business community's biggest obligation towards 2030 is to take responsibility for the green transition. Therefore, we will not buy CO2 compensation in H. Daugaard if there is no guarantee that it has a real effect.
Instead, we want to make a real reduction in our CO2 emissions so that we can contribute to a real reduction in the overall carbon footprint of your goods. We have already come a long way by investing in a modern and environmentally friendly fleet so that the average age of all our rolling stock is now down to 2.5 years. In addition, we have achieved a significant reduction in CO2 emissions from our trucks since we started training our drivers to drive as economically as possible - you can read more about this here.
Still, it is far from sufficient for the product we want to offer you. Therefore, we are currently working on implementing new types of fuel, and we are getting clear on how much our CO2 emissions should be reduced by 2025. I don't want to put numbers on it yet, but I dare to say that the target will be aggressive.
Bringing good ideas to light
As mentioned earlier, 2020 has taught us that we must embrace digital transformation, even if the familiar is safe. That's why we put digitalization high on our strategic agenda already in the summer of 2020, and we continue to digitalize both the organization and our products in 2021. We do it bit by bit, so everyone can keep up. And we strive to implement new initiatives in 30 days so that they don't run out of steam.
A number of the new digital initiatives will also be of direct benefit to you. A good example is the ability to track and trace goods, which we expect to roll out to all customers during the second quarter.
I also look forward to a more agile process when it comes to innovation. I would like to emphasize that innovation should not only come from management, because the good ideas on how to do things smarter usually come from our employees. We already do our best to test new ideas in practice and then implement them if possible.
From the Executive Board's side, we want to focus even more on bringing all employees' good ideas to the surface so that we create an innovative organization that everyone feels co-ownership of. In this way, I am sure that H. Daugaard will continue to deliver logistics and transportation of the highest quality.
All in all, 2021 will be an exciting year! Both myself and the rest of the Executive Board look forward to keeping you updated in the coming newsletters.
Michael Frihagen, Managing Director Managing Director
