Innovation

Jönköping Energi wants to be innovative in their way of working with renewable energy. They involve their different stakeholders to get innovative ideas and to develop their products and services further.

Inspiration

The leaders and managers of Jönköping Energi is very inspirational, innovative, and interested of issues within sustainability. In that way they inspire and aligning the organization, the staff, suppliers, and consumers.

Overall impact

Economic sustainability

Jönköping Energi has a yearly revenue of 1 billion. A profit of 100 million per year is given back to the citizens by investing in the municipality so they can provide services that are needed in the community. They provide 55,000 companies and homes a safe and trustworthy service of electricity. Those customers are very important for the welfare and growth of the company in the municipality (Jönköping Energi, w.y).

Social sustainability

Jönköping Energi creates job opportunities since they're collaborating with different actors in the municipality. For example, they offer students employment during holidays, they are involved in different events and work together with sports and culture organizations. They strive to be a positive force in the municipality and to be an attractive company who encourages diversity (Jönköping Energi, w.y).

Environmental sustainability

Jönköping Energi produces electricity and heat of renewable energy in a cogeneration located in Torsvik, Jönköping. Heat and electricity are also generated by hydroelectric and wind. They are making biogas for the community's vehicles, such as buses and cars. As a company they want to set marks by acting responsibly. Therefore, they recycle all waste, decrease emissions by using biogas, and set goals and demands for their purchases and their suppliers. Every year they make climate closings and climate accountings for follow ups and to make improvements. They're planning their trips and routes carefully to reduce the emissions also. Jönköping Energi uses the cold water from Vättern, the nearest lake that is located near/in the city of Jönköping. In this way many buildings can be chilled by cooling and therefore they don't have to use freons (Jönköping Energi, w.y).

Business benefit

Business benefit

Karsberg (personnel communication, 5th of December 2017): "one of our advantage is the absence of competitors when it comes to the power and heating industry. It’s a good benefit for the company. Our leadership is very forward looking and innovative to help develop improved products for the environment. I feel that here one does not have to fight to get one's opinion heard, we work with full respect. On the other hand we are very open to discuss different ideas."

Social and environmental benefit

Social benefits

Karsberg (personnel communication, 5th of December 2017) talks about a several benefits that she believes they bring to the society. "In the aspect of heating, instead of everyone using their own chimney we make it possible to coordinate the client's consumption and facilitates for the environment. By this chain of consumption, we have some level of control that influences the impact of the environment in a positive way. We provide all the residents with products and services that are environmentally friendly. This helps the consumers to be supported and continue to buy their products and services." The company's transparency has allowed their consumers to get a good picture of their company. Their quality work gives security to their consumers and society as an insurance of their work.

Environmental benefits

Karsberg (personnel communication, 5th of December 2017) explains their organization as a type of hero that fights to be better for the environment and to be innovation to produce new products and services for their consumers. "With our waste management we can use different types of materials to provide residents with heating. Companies from England and Norway pay Jönköping Energi to take care of their waste. This means that we take care of different waste material to produce heating. We also use swill to manufacture biogas to provide cars with fuel and to produce biogas we get residue as manure. Basically by swill we get two products instead of just one."

According to Stahel (2016, 24th of March) a circular economy means bringing life into old products that are in the end of their use. Instead of throwing the product away, it can be recycled or fixed. The model of a circular economy can be two different business types. One is to fix and reuse older products and not buy new products just because some part of it is broken. The other is to recycle old products to make them into new ones. Jönköping Energi has a business model that is similar with circular economy, by recycling and reusing their products, according to Karsberg (personnel communication, 5th of December 2017).

Interview

Margareta Karsberg, Operation & Quality manager