Lindéngruppen has a long-term strategic partnership with the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola – BTH) in southern Sweden that helps drive the company’s sustainability agenda forward.
The BTH has been an international hub for scientists and practitioners to develop a unifying methodology for strategic sustainable development since the 1990s. This methodology has a number of unique features, such as an operational definition of sustainability, which makes it possible to align efforts across disciplines and sectors of society.
An independent external review of all BTH research was made some years ago by a group of prominent sustainability experts working internationally that deemed the sustainability research to be ‘excellent and internationally leading’. The group assessed aspects such as publication record, academic network and cooperation, industry and societal networks, and international presence and visibility.
Another external review, conducted by Damvad Analytics in 2019, showed that publications by the BTH sustainability researchers are among the most cited in the world, with some articles among the top one percent most cited articles in their category.
“Besides the impact we have had in the scientific realm, it is also very satisfying that the output of our research has a great impact on industry and society, having guided many investments and efforts worldwide in a more sustainable direction,” says Prof. Göran Broman, Head of the Department of Strategic Sustainable Development at BTH.
The department works with research and education on sustainability leadership and innovation by supporting businesses, municipalities and other organisations that want to work strategically with sustainability. It does this by continuously refining a core methodology for strategic sustainable development, which it also uses to guide specialised sustainability research on a variety of topics.
The Master Programme in Strategic Leadership in Sustainability attracts students from all over the world, with more than 700 students from 88 countries since 2004.
“Our collaboration with Lindéngruppen has been of huge value to us, and it is certainly something we would like to develop further,” claims Prof. Broman. “One particularly exciting area that we are currently discussing is the development of a new stakeholder model together with Lindéngruppen.” This will enable the company to not only measure financial performance, but also the wider societal value Lindéngruppen creates.
A number of students have conducted their thesis research at Lindéngruppen companies and BTH currently works with Färgfabriken to set up sustainable development exhibitions and visualisations.
“I think we have a mutually beneficial and mutually inspiring collaboration with Lindéngruppen,” says Prof. Broman. "Our international research network is also a valuable asset, which provides our industry partners with access to a wide array of supplementary knowledge and competence.”
