Author: Matteo DiCapua

For years our largest emission number was built out of invoices.
This year we rebuilt it out of weight.

Where our emissions actually sit

Almost none of our footprint sits where you can walk up and point at it. Scope 1, our direct emissions, which basically come down to a small fleet of company vehicles, is 0.06 per cent. Scope 2 is the energy we buy, and that comes down to geography: Leksvik and our Swedish operations run on renewable power (zero emissions), Wrocław and Suzhou largely cannot. Solar panels on the roof in Suzhou now cover around a fifth of that site’s yearly electricity.

Then there is Scope 3, which is everything else. It runs to fifteen categories: transport in and out, business travel, commuting, the machines we invest in, what happens to a component once it reaches the end of its life. For Alvi, one of those fifteen is bigger than the other fourteen put together. Category 3.1, purchased goods and services, is 64 per cent of our total footprint on its own. Scope 3 as a whole is 83 per cent. The emissions that count were settled long before anything reached a factory floor, in a material specification, at a supplier, sometimes in a customer’s design office.

Weighing a backpack by its receipts

We first put a number on that in 2023 by multiplying what we paid. One emission factor for plastics, one for metals, a handful for everything else. It gave us a rough map while we waited for data we did not have, and nobody involved pretended otherwise.

But what you pay for something tells you very little about what it weighs. It is a bit like working out how heavy your backpack is by going through the receipts for everything in it. A titanium stove costs many times what a tin of beans costs and weighs a fraction as much. Price moves with exchange rates, with supplier margins, with how specialised a part is. Buy the same kilo of polymer at two different prices and the spreadsheet decides one of them is worse for the climate. If you want to know what you are carrying, you put the bag on a scale.

So for our 2025 reporting we changed the method. The calculation now runs on kilograms of material actually bought, measured against roughly twenty-five factors for plastics and five for metals rather than one apiece.

The result was not the one we wanted. Our total footprint came out at about half of what we had already published. Nothing changed in the factories. The old estimate had simply been too high, and we restated 2024 on the new basis so the two years describe operations rather than accounting.

What we still cannot see

73.9 per cent of Scope 3 now comes from primary or activity-based data. The rest is still estimated, and some of it is rough. At one of our facilities, metal purchases are still calculated from spend, because the purchasing system could not export weights. That system is being rebuilt so the figures are there next year. At another plant nobody could pull the packaging figures at all, so a colleague weighed a cardboard box and multiplied.

The next step is not ours to take alone. Material selection and part design are collaborative processes built around client requirements. That is why our 2030 Scope 3 target is an engagement target: 75 per cent of core suppliers, measured by spend, holding SBTi-aligned climate targets of their own. The first rounds of those conversations begin this autumn. We do not yet know what percentage we are starting from.

We always improve.

A Nofence collar is not used in a controlled environment.

It rides on sheep, goats and cattle through forest, mountains, rain, heat and mud — and it has to stay on, keep working, and help the farmer manage grazing without a single physical fence.

That’s the problem Nofence set out to solve. And it’s exactly the kind of problem where material choices, plastic components and production quality decide whether the product holds up.

A digital boundary in a physical world

With Nofence, the farmer draws grazing areas digitally in an app instead of building and maintaining fences.

The animal wears a solar-powered collar that uses audio cues and, when needed, a gentle electric pulse, to learn where the boundary is. The result is grazing that bends to the farmer’s needs: animals are easier to move, difficult terrain becomes usable, and pastures can be rotated so one area rests and regrows while another is grazed.

By 1 January 2026, Nofence had sold more than 200,000 collars. Farmers have created 40,683 pastures, drawn 75,000 kilometres of virtual boundary and managed 2.5 million hectares of land, generating data from 20 million grazing days along the way. The technology is now live in six markets — Norway, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Spain and the United States — and is used across all 50 US states.

What that’s worth looks different on every farm. In the Nordics, it can stretch the grazing season by at least two months. In Spain, animals graze high-risk land to prevent wildfires. In the US, farmers move stock more often to spare drought-stressed ground. The thread running through all of it is flexibility: the less a farmer depends on fixed infrastructure, the faster they can respond to weather, terrain and the animals themselves.

The product can look simple. The conditions it survives are anything but. The collar sits on animals that move, scratch, shove and snag on whatever they can find — and a cow can weigh close to a tonne. It has to take impact, stretching, temperature swings, moisture and years outdoors. That puts the mechanical design and material choices at the centre of everything. The collar doesn’t just have to work; it has to work every single day, on real animals, across very different markets.

Alvi’s role: engineering support, testing and production

The collaboration began in Leksvik in 2019, when Alvi (more specifically IV Moulding) was asked to develop a neck-strap component on a tight deadline. It has since grown into a close technical partnership spanning plastic components, tooling, material selection, prototyping, testing and production.

For Nofence, the real value has gone well beyond manufacturing capacity. It’s the competence to ask the hard questions early: Which material can take the stretch? How will the component behave over time, in heat, cold and damp? Can it be welded, assembled and produced reliably at scale?

Testing in the right material

Digital models and 3D prints are useful, but they only go so far. To understand how the collar would actually behave, Nofence needed injection-moulded test parts in the real material. Working with prototype tooling, Alvi and Nofence evaluated strength, ultrasonic welding, solar-cell integration and material performance — finding and fixing problems before committing to full-scale production tooling. For a scale-up, that’s risk taken off the table early.

Built to scale

Nofence has grown from a Norwegian technology company into an international scale-up, and that kind of growth demands a supply chain that can keep pace on quality, technical level and lead time. Alvi’s mix of local engineering support, industrial production experience and group-wide capacity — paired with the short distance between the teams in Trøndelag — has made the partnership work. But the thing that matters most is the way the two companies work together: direct, technical and honest.

Practical technology for a more flexible future

Nofence is helping farmers rethink grazing — not by replacing the farmer, but by handing them more control and more ways to use their land well. For Alvi, it’s the kind of project that shows what industrial expertise brings to sustainable technology: not big claims, but practical decisions, tested materials and dependable production.

When more than 200,000 collars are out in the world, it’s the small details that count. They’re what keep the product working — day after day, animal after animal, pasture after pasture.

Meet Thomas Larsson – Alvi Group’s new Sales Director, part-time farmer, early-morning runner and self-confessed restless soul

It’s early when Thomas Larsson gets going. The dog needs walking, and somewhere out in the Skåne countryside – fifty minutes from Malmö – his day starts long before most meeting rooms have switched on the lights. That’s by design. By the time Thomas wakes up, China has already put in half a day’s work, and the factory in Poland has been running since six.

“A good day starts with something having already happened overnight – something I can get my hands on,” he says. It may be the shortest possible description of the man: always a little ahead, always in motion.

Back in the plastics industry after twelve years

Thomas is new to the role of Sales Director, but not to the trade. With a background in the plastics, metal and electronics industries, he’s now making a comeback to a sector he left twelve years ago. What drew him back? Proximity. In previous roles, the decisions were made far away – often on another continent.

“Here you’re close to where things are decided, and you can follow along in a completely different way. That’s something I’d missed.”

The other draw is the breadth. Alvi stands for one core technology, but the applications are almost endless. “One day you meet a customer in medical technology, the next someone cleaning exhaust gases from diesel engines for the sake of the environment. You get into so many different applications – and you’re part of making things a little better.”

After his first month, he’s clear on what has impressed him most: how much a company of just over 300 employees achieves with limited resources. “As a smaller business, we’re well ahead in areas you wouldn’t expect.”

And what would his wife say?

We tried a little trick: if we asked his wife for three words to describe Thomas, what would she say? He laughs. “Well, I’d have to admit I keep quite a high pace. She’d probably call me fairly irritating and a bit much at times – pretty short-fused.” A pause. “But I think she’d also say I’m usually in a good mood.”

A cheerful, impatient type with a short fuse, then – and enough self-irony to say it out loud himself.

The forester’s farm – and the people along the way

Outside work there’s a different rhythm. Thomas and his wife own an older property – a former forester’s cottage – with woodland, fields and animals grazing through to spring. It’s not somewhere you just visit; it asks something of you. “There’s work to do in the forest, and animals to look after. It takes time – but it’s your own.” He keeps in shape with running, for as long as his knees and hips will go along with it.

And then there’s the travelling. His heart beats especially for Eastern Europe, with Albania and the wine country of Moldova among his favourites. But what he really travels for is the people.

“I can sit at a café and just study people. Understanding people’s daily life is very inspiring to me.”

That’s perhaps where the circle closes. Whether it’s a new customer across a meeting table or a stranger at a café in Tirana, Thomas Larsson is curious about people. Not the worst trait to bring into a new role as Sales Director.

Welcome to Alvi Group, Thomas.

Sustainability reporting is not about showing that everything is perfect. It’s about seeing more clearly where we can improve.

For Alvi Group, 2025 was an important step in that direction. We have strengthened the way we measure, understand and work with sustainability across the group — from energy use and material flows to supplier data and waste management.

Better data, better decisions

One of the most important developments this year is the move towards better data.

In previous years, parts of our climate accounting were based on spend-based estimates. That means emissions were calculated based on how much we paid for materials or services.

In 2025, we have taken a more precise approach: measuring more based on actual activity, such as kilos of material used and waste treatment data.

This matters because better data leads to better decisions.

In 2025, 73.9% of our Scope 3 emissions were calculated using primary or activity-based data. This gives us a stronger foundation for understanding where emissions occur and where we can take action.

Collaboration across the value chain

The report also shows why collaboration across the value chain is essential.

Our Scope 3 emissions account for the majority of our climate footprint — approximately 14,000 tonnes CO₂e, or around 83% of our reported emissions. By comparison, Scope 2 accounts for approximately 2,858 tonnes CO₂e, or around 17%.

This means that while energy measures in our own operations are important, the largest improvements will require collaboration with suppliers, transport partners and customers.

Progress in our own operations

At the same time, we are making progress in our own operations.

In 2025, our market-based Scope 2 emissions were reduced by 17.7%. Investments such as solar energy are visible and important steps, but they are only part of the picture.

The bigger challenge is to connect energy, materials, design choices and supplier collaboration into one continuous improvement process.

Making material use more circular

Material use is another important focus area.

In 2025, Alvi Group used 2,615 tonnes of material.
Having better data allows us to optimize how these resources flow through our business.

Our goal is twofold: maximizing the material that becomes finished goods, and ensuring that any remaining production waste is systematically recovered and diverted into new value streams.

Sustainability becomes practical

This transparency is where sustainability becomes practical.

It is not only about targets and reporting frameworks. It is about asking better questions earlier in the process:

• Can we reduce waste?
• Can we use material more efficiently?
• Can production scrap be reused?
• Can design choices reduce the footprint before production even starts?

Always Improve

Our approach is closely connected to our culture of Always Improve.

Sustainability at Alvi Group is not a separate track. It is part of how we improve quality, efficiency, resource use and long-term competitiveness.

We know we still have work to do. But with better data, clearer priorities and stronger collaboration, we are building a more precise foundation for progress.

We’re delighted to announce that Arnt Terje Aksnes is expanding his leadership role within the Alvi Group.

Already serving as Managing Director of Industriverktøy, Arnt Terje will now also take the helm as Managing Director of IV Moulding.

Bringing both of our Leksvik-based operations under a single leadership structure builds on an already close collaboration and lays a strong foundation for future growth and efficiency. While Arnt Terje will lead both companies, they will continue to operate as separate entities, each with a dedicated focus on its own performance.

Reflecting on his expanded role, Arnt Terje shares:
“Both companies have incredibly dedicated employees with a relentless focus on innovation and improvement. It’s an honour to lead them both as we continue to evolve.”

Magnus Emeus, Group CEO, adds:
“Arnt Terje’s people-first approach, deep local roots and broad expertise across both injection moulding and tooling & machining make him the ideal leader for both facilities. We’re excited to see each company thrive under his guidance.”

Please join us in wishing Arnt Terje all the best in this next chapter.