A sustainable future with better coordination and planning

Challenge

Long-term ownership means at least 100 years

How far into the future do we need to look to be sustainable? At Catena they dare to look further than most, because they consider long-term sustainability directly business-critical. Catena calls it an eternity perspective, where they work in very long cycles. “We talk about an eternity perspective, but in concrete terms you can think of at least a hundred years. When we develop or build our facilities, it’s to own them over the long term, and then it’s important to take good care of them,” says Amanda Thynell, head of sustainability at Catena. But such a commitment also brings challenges. The long horizon naturally requires a deep understanding of the needs of the buildings and the customers, as well as a good overview and coordination. We sat down with Catena’s head of sustainability, Amanda Thynell, who says that Planima has played a key role in enabling sustainable and efficient management of Catena’s logistics facilities.

Solution

Digitalization for better coordination

To achieve its goals, Catena has appointed sustainability coordinators – an entirely new role in the organization. Something else they have identified as a key to success is digitalization, to be better able to plan and coordinate all the different parts of the business. And that’s where Planima comes in, with increased control and a better overview of the many facilities’ needs. After data collection and inventory, the organization can generate clear analyses, which makes it easier to make smarter decisions. Amanda says the tool is used to generate everything from maintenance plans and financial data to coordinating property management nationally. “We can now create coordination savings that we didn’t have when we worked according to our previous approach, which was more analog and where we didn’t look at the entire portfolio, but more region by region.”

Results

Sustainability part of the core business

Through the new initiative, Catena has gained a better basis for strategic decisions and can now plan and act more proactively and nationally. This means, for example, that they can procure contracting services across several regions and thereby own risks and opportunities jointly.  Another advantage is that the tool is easy to work with and allows visualization of large amounts of data across the entire portfolio. That makes the information more accessible and simplifies the dialogue with customers.

Planima gives us insight into our property portfolio and maintenance backlog, which helps us plan and act proactively. It makes budget work and customer dialogue easier.
Amanda Thynell, head of sustainability at Catena

Amanda says that the work environment has also improved, since the efficiency gains have led to reduced stress. This focus on proactive property management, where they have full control of the needs, has also brought financial savings. At the same time, the facilities are kept attractive and sustainable over time. A real win for employees and the company, in other words. By making sustainability work a cornerstone of the strategic core business, Catena has also created competitive advantages. They can deliver on every part of their sustainability focus: organizational sustainability, economic sustainability, and ecological sustainability. With this long-term approach, Catena is well positioned to lead the way in sustainable management of logistics facilities in Scandinavia.

By gaining more knowledge, we can minimize the risk of unforeseen costs and make our property management work more efficient. Those are the big gains we see ahead of us and what we get help with.
Amanda Thynell, head of sustainability at Catena