THE TRANSPARENCY ACT

The Norwegian “act relating to enterprises’ transparency and work on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions”- the Transparency act (Åpenhetsloven) entered into force on 1 June 2022. The act shall promote enterprises’ respect for fundamental human rights and decent working conditions in connection with the production of goods and the provision of services. The act shall further ensure the general public access to information regarding how enterprises address adverse impacts on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions.

This is of great importance to us in Bertel O. Steen Defence & Security, and thus inn all our contracts our suppliers must commit to follow the Norwegian Transparency Act.

Click the button to read the Transparency act (Åpenhetsloven) in Norwegian.

The Bertel O. Steen Group is one of Norway’s largest and oldest family-owned businesses. The group today has more than 3 200 employees, and a turnover of more than 2,5 bn euro. Bertel O. Steen Defence & Security is a sub-group of Bertel O. Steen, and has been in business since 1901. The company has built up a wide range of products and solutions optimized for tactical use by demanding users within Defence, Law Enforcement, Firefighting and Search & Rescue operations. Parts of the product range is also offered to a large section of the outdoor retail market as well as in the other Scandinavian countries. We are a trusted advisor at a range of larger Norwegian military investments, and a long-term strategic partner with the Norwegian Defence Logistics Organization within the areas of maintenance, life-cycle support, operational logistics and storage.

Bertel O. Steen Defence & Security has its head office in Oslo, Norway, with subsidiaries in Stockholm, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
Bertel O. Steen Defence & Security is proud to represent and work with in all aspect’s high standard producers and suppliers for the Scandinavian markets. The implementation of the Norwegian Transparency Act further reinforces the emphasis on the human rights and working conditions throughout the supply chain. We will carry out assessments, mapping and inquiries, in order to evaluate and control to the extent possible how our supply chain handle and avoid any negative impact on working conditions and human rights.

We demand from all our suppliers that they commit to comply with the Transparency Act. Although we also today expect from our suppliers, principals and other co-operation partners that fundamental human rights and working conditions are respected, this is not always fully reflected in the legal agreements. This will gradually be adjusted over a period of time. Our supplier code of conduct, in which concrete commitments by the supplier and their sub supply-chain is included, will be gradually implemented in new supplier agreements.

Our category teams work on a continuous basis to map our supply chain. We have risk based approach to geographic regions and product categories, in order to focus most on the areas where the risk of violations against human rights and decent working conditions is the highest. This mapping makes the basis for our further priorities.