Press release -
Sustainability Manager to drive environmental change in JYSK
JYSK is stepping up its ongoing work with sustainability with the recruitment of Sam Harrington as Sustainability Manager. His job will be to further drive environmental change throughout the company.
Working with sustainability is nothing new in JYSK. But JYSK is now putting increased attention to sustainability and wants to move in a more environmentally responsible direction within all areas of the business, explains Rune Jungberg Pedersen, Communications & CSR Director in JYSK.
“JYSK has already cut the per-store consumption of energy with LED lighting and modern, energy-efficient distribution centres. We have reduced waste, sourced raw materials from more sustainable sources and much more. However, JYSK needs to do more, and the aim to become more sustainable is an important part of our future strategy,” says Rune Jungberg Pedersen.
JYSK has therefore created a new position in the company and employed a Sustainability Manager to be the driver of change.
Small changes with big impact
Originally from the US, where he worked 10 years as co-owner of a start-up company producing biomaterials, Sam Harrington moved to Denmark in 2016 to work as Senior Manager of Sustainable Packaging for LEGO in Billund before moving to JYSK.
“What is so exciting about working for a big international company like JYSK is that we can come to work and make a small improvement and then it will be multiplied out over thousands of stores and millions of products. So one small change that reduces some waste or cuts a little energy can add up to saving several lifetimes of an individual’s personal environmental impact,” explains Sam Harrington.
With an engineering background, Sam Harrington takes a data-driven approach to assessing where JYSK needs to make the biggest changes.
“While we are excellent at measuring financial aspects of our business, the environmental impacts from JYSK have never really been quantified. So I am initially focusing on conducting a greenhouse gas audit, which will inform our strategy and tell us where we should focus our efforts to fight climate change,” says Sam Harrington.
Sam Harrington started working at JYSK’s international head office in Brabrand, Denmark, on 29 April 2020.
Topics
JYSK is an international chain of stores with Scandinavian roots that sells everything for the home. The first store opened in Denmark in 1979, and today JYSK has more than 2,900 stores and 23,000 employees in 51 countries. In Germany and Austria the stores are called Dänisches Bettenlager – in the rest of the world JYSK. JYSK is owned by the family behind Lars Larsen Group, who owns a number of companies with a total annual turnover of 4.7 billion EUR. JYSK’s turnover is 3.794 billion EUR.
