IVL Svenska miljöinstitutet, kontoret i Fiskebäckskil.

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About IVL

IVL - Bridging science and society

To solve the environmental challenges our world is facing, we need more than environmental research. We need collaborative efforts, an interdisciplinary approach and real-world applications.

Research and consultancy assignments for a sustainable transition

Half of IVL's operations consists of research; the other half comprises external assignments and services. IVL employs more than 400 environmental specialists in virtually every field relating to the environment and sustainability. We have extensive scientific expertise, ranging from engineers and environmental scientists to behavioural scientists, economists and social scientists. And we possess both broad-based and specialist knowledge – a quarter of our employees have doctoral degrees. IVL drives the transition to the sustainable society by turning science into reality, environmental problems into opportunities, and linear processes into a circular economy.

IVL's organisation

IVL was founded jointly by the state and industry in 1966 and was Sweden's first environmental research institute. IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute AB has been a limited company since 1982 and is owned by the Swedish Institute for Water and Air Pollution Research (SIVL). The company is non-profit-making in the sense that no profits are distributed to the owners but are reinvested in the company's R&D activities.

The owner foundation, SIVL, is responsible for the funds made available by the state for co-financed environmental research at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute. SIVL has a joint board, with industry appointing half of the members and the government half. The chairman of the board is appointed by the government.

The foundation's board appoints members to the board of the limited company IVL. The government and the business community are also represented on the company's board with an equal number of members. We work with applied research and consultancy assignments with the aim of achieving a sustainable society. Based in Sweden and Europe, we also conduct R&D activities in other parts of the world, particularly in China and India.

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute conducts both research and consulting activities. Research is partly co-funded by the government and industry, and partly grant-funded through government research organisations, research foundations and the EU. Consultancy activities include both short-term consultancy assignments and more extensive national and international research and development assignments.

In addition to the parent company IVL, the Group also comprises the subsidiaries eBVD (in which IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute has a 51 per cent stake), Bastaonline AB, EPD International AB, CCBuild, Möbelfakta, IVL Environmental Technologies (Beijing) Company Ltd and the joint venture SEC in China.

Together with KTH, IVL owns the Sjöstadsverket Water Innovation Centre (SWIC) pilot and test facility. Since 2019, IVL has had a wholly owned subsidiary in India that will mainly focus on wastewater treatment projects in the Indian market.

Our operative units:

Environmental Intelligence
Sustainable Society
Sustainable Business and Consumption

Our focus areas:

Sustainable environment
Sustainable society
Sustainable transition

Turnover: SEK 509,5 million (2022)

Profit after net financial items: SEK 43,3 million (2022)

Number of employees: 404 (2022). The actual number of employees is higher due to part-time jobs and the fact that some employees work during part of the year.

Offices: Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Fiskebäckskil, Skellefteå, Beijing, Tianjin and Mumbai

Subsidiary companies: eBVD in Norden AB, Basta Online AB, CCBuild, EPD International AB, IVL Environmental Technologies Company Ltd in Beijing, and in addition the joint-venture company SEC in China.

Environmental policy and quality

All our operations are carried out with a focus on sustainability, with decisions based on a systemic approach and life cycle thinking. Our own operations are permeated by efficient resource utilization, climate-smart choices and reduced emissions from our transports and journeys. Our policy emphasizes the importance of all our assignments and research to contribute to the fulfillment of both the Swedish environmental goals and the global goals for sustainable development (Agenda 2030).

Presently IVL have the following tasks:

Contribute to sustainable societal development
Offer relevant and credible environmental knowledge
Minimize your own environmental impact
Comply with applicable laws and regulations as well as our code of conduct

Our most important environmental goals are:

Contribute to improved environmental performance of our customers and to a sustainable society
To reduce the environmental impact that arises from travel within the business
To reduce energy use in offices and other premises

Read our Sustainability and Environmental Policy here.Pdf, 319.7 kB, opens in new window. Pdf, 319.7 kB.

We work with environmental and quality issues within the framework of an integrated business system and are certified in accordance with SS-EN ISO 14001 and 9001. Large parts of our measurement and analysis business are accredited in accordance with EN ISO / IEC 17025:2018. For the scope of the accreditation, see Swedac's accreditation registerExternal link, opens in new window. External link..

Our quality work is correspondingly governed by a quality policy as well as overall and detailed quality goals. Take a look at our Quality Policy here.

Our quality goals, in brief:

To provide services with quality, based on good service on agreed terms
Not to exceed project budgets
To be a well-reputed and internationally established institute

Code of Conduct

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute enjoys a good reputation as a responsible company. This is based on business integrity and activities that are consistently undertaken in accordance with the laws and regulations governing IVL's activities.

The IVL Code of Conduct is based on the UN Global Compact's ten principles and the IVL core values. The Code of Conduct has been adopted by the IVL Board to emphasize the principles that apply to all IVL's officers and directors and that govern IVL's conduct in relation to employees, suppliers, business partners and other stakeholders. IVL urges all suppliers and partners to follow this Code of Conduct. The principles in the Code of Conduct are to be applied when evaluating current and future suppliers.

In addition to the Code of Conduct IVL's activities are governed by a number of policies.

Read IVL's code of cunduct Pdf, 1.1 MB.

Vision, aim and core values

Our vision is a sustainable society. We are pushing the shift to a sustainable society by:

taking science to society
turning environmental problems into solutions
bending linear processes into a circular economy

Our aim is to work with applied research and consultancy for an ecologic, economic and socially sustainable growth in the business sector as well as for the society at large. Our core values rely on credibility, foresight, commitment, utility and a holistic approach.

Collaborations and networks

IVL's strategy is to maintain and develop a close collaboration with the business sector, government agencies and international research bodies and universities.

As part of this, IVL has formalized collaborations with, for example, the Royal Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology and Lund University. One of our roles lies in acting as a bridge between research and business and creating arenas for collaboration between different societal actors. Therefore, IVL actively leads and participates in various types of networks and other collaborations.

These are some of our important collaborations and networks:

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