Sustainable development in a turbulent world

Many of us are concerned about the direction the world is heading in right now. Have the conditions for the green transition in Europe and Sweden changed fundamentally, or are we just experiencing a temporary setback?

There is no doubt that our work has become more challenging. Pushing back environmental and climate targets and placing less emphasis on sustainability reporting naturally reduces the incentive to take further steps towards greater competitiveness through sustainability. On the other hand, growing pressure on supply security means we need to take greater responsibility for both circular solutions and for managing increasingly clear trade-offs between conflicting targets. In other words, it is clear that we still have a lot of work to do ìn the years ahead.

IVL’s new strategy, IVL 2030, took effect in 2025 and strengthens our leading position as a research institute in climate, environment and sustainability across several dimensions. The aim is to further strengthen our position in Sweden’s and Europe’s research and innovation systems, and to expand in selected markets such as India, where we can make a significant contribution to sustainable development. A cornerstone of the strategy is also to develop our culture – One IVL – into an attractive and leading innovation environment in our field.
The group, including the parent company and subsidiaries, reported another year of financial stability and strong profitability, with growth of just over eight per cent in the parent company. More than 90 per cent of our operations are conducted within the parent company, but we are pleased to see that our focus on digital solutions for environmental and sustainability data is gaining momentum within our subsidiaries. Our company in India, which focuses on quality assurance in the construction of wastewater treatment plants, is also performing very well.

Our biggest initiative to date

In 2025, we carried out two major internal initiatives that impacted our results. As part of the technology shift to strengthen financial governance, a major part of the implementation of our new financial system was prepared and carried out during the year.

At the same time, we made our largest investment to date in internally funded research to accelerate our development in the blue economy, the green industrial transition and sustainable chemistry, as well as to strengthen our research and development in AI and machine learning.

This spring, IVL launched a new group, WASH Governance, which works internationally on water and sanitation issues in areas facing severe water shortages. At the same time, a collaboration was also launched with a new partner for IVL; UNICEF. The initiative has resulted in two new representative offices, in Bogotá and Amman, strengthening our presence in the Middle East and Latin America. Read more about this later in the annual report, along with a selection of our projects from the past year.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all our employees, whose creativity, hard work, drive and commitment make the strong progress we are seeing possible and the knowledge we contribute to business and society. We would also like to thank our clients, funders and partners for giving us the opportunity to contribute to solutions to your challenges.

John Rune Nielsen
CEO