Technology leadership and innovation
We can look back on a year where our ability to adapt quickly to new business conditions, our focus on maintaining stability and our drive to fostering innovation led to solid orders, record revenues and stable profitability. Our approach to building trust and creating long-term relationships with stakeholders enables the development of transformative technologies and our success over time.
However, growth is rarely linear and 2024 was in some ways more challenging than the year before. After a very strong start, the market conditions became increasingly unpredictable towards the end of the year and were characterized by a level of hesitancy. Despite this the overall demand for Atlas Copco Group’s equipment and services remained stable.
Updated targets to match future ambitions
A new target has been added related to trade compliance and fair competition training. We are also adding a target to have 25% women in leadership positions by 2030 in addition to our current target of having 30% women employees the same year, as well as a commitment to developing a climate transition plan by the end of 2026, and to set long-term climate targets beyond 2030. We have also added a target focusing on creating supplier engagement around environmental, social and governance assessment and action.
Innovation is our biggest change driver
In 2024, we spent 4% of our revenues, or MSEK 7 065, on R&D, and today over 5 000 of our more than 55 000 employees are R&D engineers. Just as important as product innovation is excelling in operational efficiency and our ability to be innovative in areas such as marketing and sales, logistics and manufacturing.
This year we have seen a rapid evolvement of AI that will change the way we work going forward. We are today leveraging AI across various domains.
A main focus area is to drive the development of new and more efficient technologies to limit climate change. We continue to see a significant reduction in emissions from our own operations. However, our increase in sales since the base year and a limited access to renewable energy on main customer markets pose a big challenge in terms of reaching our targets for the use phase of our products (scope 3). Our biggest contribution to a low-carbon society is, however, linked to the innovations we put on the market. We see that our efforts here are giving results.
Water for All 40 years
This year Water for All turned 40 years. The organization, founded in 1984 after an initiative taken by two colleagues in Sickla, Sweden, is our employee community engagement which has contributed to millions of people gaining access to clean water and sanitation. I am a proud supporter of Water for All.
Continuous learning and growth
This year, I took up the role as CEO after a long career within the Group. Although every journey is unique, I am far from alone when it comes to jumping on opportunities and taking on new challenges. Let us see where this drive and dedication will take us in the coming years.
Vagner Rego, President and CEO of Atlas Copco Group
