The total emissions from the Veritas’ group of companies were 1.027 tons of CO₂ in the year 2022. The total emissions therefore increased by 24% in the year 2022 or from 827 tons of CO₂ to 1.027 tons of CO₂. The largest emission is due to employee travel abroad or 302 tons of CO₂. Of this, 124 tons of CO₂ were generated due to the employees' annual holiday trip held abroad.

The total amount of emissions depends on the scope of Veritas' operations. In order to be able to compare emissions between years, a coefficient is presented which is emissions of CO₂/employee. For 2022, emissions per employee were 4.1, but were 3.3 tons of CO₂ in 2021, which is an increase of 24% between years. The goal set a year ago for the reduction of CO₂ emissions was therefore not achieved.

7% less CO₂ emissions were due to the import of goods or 327 tons of CO₂ in 2022 compared to 352 tons of CO₂ in 2021.

In 2021, an initiative was launched to analyze the transport routes of products sent by the company's suppliers by air. The analysis revealed that there are opportunities to significantly reduce emissions, through dialogue with suppliers and changes in transport routes. One of the goals that the company set for itself last year was that when renewing contracts and when entering into new contracts, efforts will be made to reduce the carbon footprint of products to the country by requesting shipping as much as possible and making requirements that packaging around products is easy to recycle.

In the results of the total emissions of CO₂ in 2022, it was found that 251 tons of CO₂ were released due to shipments by air and 76 tons of CO₂ due to shipments by ships. The result for the year 2022 was that the amount of imported goods by air will decrease by 2% between years and that the percentage of air shipments will decrease, resulting in 14% in 2022 compared to 16% in 2021.

CO₂ emissions from imports depend on the distance the product is transported and the size of the shipment. Emissions are estimated to be twenty times higher due to transport by air compared to transport by ship. Figures show emissions for all imports of the group's products.

Last year, targets were set to reduce the company's carbon footprint due to the use of fuel, and it was successful, but the result was 289 tons versus 323 tons of CO₂ in 2021, or about 11% less. In 2022, the group's total number of vehicles was 88.5 compared to 88 vehicles in 2021. With the new transportation policy, the options for employees increased. Thus, they could choose electric cars or receive car subsidies instead of cars with non-environmentally friendly energy sources.

Last year, Distica took over Stodir's warehouse. There this entails a new challenge as the prosthetics call for home distribution. Optimizing deployment and maximizing synergies is a considerable task, but its impact is not evident in this report.

In 2021, an assessment of waste issues and waste sorting was carried out in collaboration with Pure North Recycling, a company which recycles plastic with environmentally friendly energy sources. The conclusion of the audit was that there are opportunities to better recycle raw materials from us and support a circular economy in terms of raw materials. Therefore, a baler was put into use that bales cardboard boxes and plastic in a warehouse in Miðhraun and in Suðurhraun, with the aim of delivering better raw materials for recycling. Plastic pallets were also sent for recycling to Pure North. Veritas aims to increase sorting of waste and promote reuse and recycling. Recycling has been successful with a concerted effort, but there is still work to be done. The group's recycling rate went from 50% to 56% between years. Adding persons responsible for classification issues to establishments showed good results and, for example, the warehouse in Suðurhraun improved its recycling rate from 49% to 78% between years.

Íslenska gámafélagið (ÍGF) provides Veritas with a full array of waste management services. In 2019, ÍGF started exporting household refuse to Europe for energy production. Therefore, no refuse ÍGF collects from Veritas is disposed in landfills.

We try to re-use as much as possible the packaging used to protect the products, but the most used is brown cardboard and bubble wrap. The purchase of plastic bags, stretch film and bubble wrap therefore decreased significantly between years.

A few years ago, the company invested in reusable boxes for transporting products to customers, and foam boxes are only used in individual shipments. Distica distributes the majority of all vaccines distributed in Iceland. Distribution of vaccines in general is a major challenge as there is such a large increase in refrigerated products but the correct temperature for vaccines must be maintained.

"Special packaging around vaccines is the most difficult packaging to sort, but it takes 48 hours to prepare a box to transport products. In order to respond to that, we expanded the medicine refrigerator and can thus reuse the boxes again in the capital area. In this way, we manage to use this energy again and achieve a cycle that helps us both in recycling and reuse. On average, we ship 150 coolers every day. It makes a big difference to be able to reuse them. If we can cycle them, we can use them continuously, and in that process there is a lot of value. " says Oddný Sófusdóttir, manager of Distica's operations department.

Last year, Stoð began preparations to move operations to one location in Dragháls, but so far the company has been located in three locations.

Veritas has entered into an agreement with Kolviður, The Iceland Carbon Fund, for carbon footprint offsetting of our car fleet for 2022. Veritas' group of companies carbon footprint in 2022 before offset was 1.027 tons CO₂. Veritas carbon footprint was 706 tons CO₂ for 2022 after offsetting which was 323 tons CO₂. Our calculations are based on average offset per year per tree - not taking into account an offset period up to 60 years as calculated by Kolviður. Hence, our calculations assume a certain offset per year which qualifies as assets for financial accounting purposes, not only once as calculated by Kolviður.

The group of companies takes great pride in having only well-known quality products from manufacturers that meet the strictest quality standards. Many of Veritas' suppliers are global leaders in sustainability issues and place increased emphasis and demands on partners to improve in terms of sustainability and social responsibility. In addition, resellers have started to make demands and reject products that are not in environmentally friendly packaging or in excessive packaging. In this way, sustainability gains more and more importance in the entire value chain.

Great improvements have taken place in the electronic receipt of shipments in recent years. Also in terms of the introduction of electronic signatures, an increase in paperless communication internally and deliveries to customers, together with the fact that more emphasis has been placed on electronic data storage. The company's goal is to increase the share of paperless transactions that meet all quality requirements. The goal is that printing on paper is kept to a minimum and reduced over the years. The total number of printed papers was 737,00 against 893,000 the previous year, and the number of papers has therefore decreased by 17%.