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How Visma turns sustainability into a competitive advantage

Article

How Visma turns sustainability into a competitive advantage

What does it actually look like to scale sustainability across hundreds of small and medium-sized companies without adding complexity or slowing them down? For SMBs, founders, and entrepreneurs, it’s quickly becoming a practical driver of long-term efficiency and competitiveness

Article

How Visma turns sustainability into a competitive advantage

What does it actually look like to scale sustainability across hundreds of small and medium-sized companies without adding complexity or slowing them down? For SMBs, founders, and entrepreneurs, it’s quickly becoming a practical driver of long-term efficiency and competitiveness

Business insights,Sustainability

Article

How Visma turns sustainability into a competitive advantage

What does it actually look like to scale sustainability across hundreds of small and medium-sized companies without adding complexity or slowing them down? For SMBs, founders, and entrepreneurs, it’s quickly becoming a practical driver of long-term efficiency and competitiveness

Business insights,Sustainability

What does it actually look like to scale sustainability across hundreds of small and medium-sized companies without adding complexity or slowing them down? For SMBs, founders, and entrepreneurs, it’s quickly becoming a practical driver of long-term efficiency and competitiveness

Not a nice-to-have, but a business imperative

Visma’s approach starts with a clear belief: sustainability must be embedded into how companies operate, not layered on top.

“Integrating sustainable practices into our culture and decision-making is not just a ‘nice to do,’ but a business imperative to build resilience and stay relevant over the long-term,” explains Sarah le Roux, Sustainability Manager at Visma.

As a large group of companies, Visma combines shared direction with local ownership. For many of these companies, the gap between knowledge and execution is where sustainability efforts stall. Visma addresses this by providing concrete tools and frameworks that make action easier, such as:

  • Visma’s Sustainability Policy
  • A Sustainable Engineering Playbook to improve software efficiency
  • A Supplier Code of Conduct to set high standards across the value chain
  • E-learning and onboarding programs for newly acquired companies

The result is a system where founders and management teams maintain control but don’t have to start from scratch.

Immediate access to scale, data and expertise

Being part of Visma allows companies to accelerate their sustainability journey by providing immediate access to a mature, high-quality sustainability reporting framework and a network of expertise. At the same time, Visma Group’s collective scale in supplier contracts unlocks automatic benefits for companies in achieving their sustainability goals.

“When it comes to purchases made through the Group contracts, our companies are supported by a supply chain where 82.7% of suppliers (by spend) already have 1.5°C-aligned climate targets,” highlights Martin Nicolaysen, Risk & Sustainability Analyst at Visma.

For founders, this means solving problems faster and at a level that would often be difficult to achieve independently.

From constraint to impact - Nmbrs case

Some sustainability challenges are everyday logistical hurdles. For Nmbrs, for instance, the issue was simple: landlords controlled energy sourcing and were unwilling to switch to renewable electricity. The solution came through the Visma ecosystem.

“Through the Visma Group contract with STX, a renewable energy certificates trader, Nmbrs was able to buy green energy certificates, thereby reaching the target of 100% renewable electricity for their offices,” mentions Nicolaysen.

The Sustainability team is now looking to scale this initiative even further. In 2026, a Group purchase program will be launched to help companies access renewable energy at a lower cost and without minimum volume constraints.

Where sustainability meets profit - e-conomic case

The most powerful impact happens when sustainability is embedded directly into products. At e-conomic, this meant rethinking their software infrastructure in response to rising emissions and costs. 

By moving to container-based architecture and relocating security scanning and product development to climate-optimised locations in Europe, e-conomic has reduced both environmental impact and operational spend.  The result is substantial savings in both CO₂ and costs, with a 51% reduction in cloud-based CO₂ emissions in just one year. Since the platform is 100% cloud-based, the benefits of these optimisations are also shared with their 276,000 customers.

“This is a clear example of how financial and environmental benefits can go hand in hand,” adds Lars Holm, Sustainability Manager at e-conomic. 

The real challenge: consistency across a decentralised Group

Sustainability at scale is not without challenges.

“A major hurdle has been ensuring the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of sustainability data collected from hundreds of companies,” points out le Roux.

Different geographies, systems, and rapid M&A activity all add complexity, which is solved through knowledge sharing and an emphasis on transparency. 

Combined with internal benchmarking and accountability metrics, this creates a system where companies are motivated to improve without heavy centralisation.

Measuring what actually matters

To ensure impact is real, not theoretical, Visma focuses on material, measurable  areas across all companies:

  • Energy consumption in offices
  • Business travel and commuting
  • Data centre usage
  • IT hardware

All of these areas are tracked through a shared system and integrated into risk management. For investors, this signals that sustainability is embedded into governance, not treated as a separate initiative.

What’s next: AI, regulation, and value chain impact

Looking ahead, there is a lot that still needs to be done.

“One of our biggest focus areas is helping our companies to use AI more sustainably,” says Nicolaysen.

Balancing speed, efficiency, and responsible AI use will be key, supported by a dedicated AI Risk Management Committee. At the same time, Visma is preparing for major regulatory shifts, including CSRD and the EU Pay Transparency Directive.

And across the value chain, deeper supplier engagement will continue to drive impact at scale.

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