Environment

Sustainability - risks and rewards

By Nick Reilly Sustainability has moved beyond the initial belief that it is ‘all about the environment’. Customer interest, investor pressure and tenders have been driving more emphasis on sustainability for businesses which includes employee’s wellbeing, supply chains and communities.

With our clients, we see different approaches when they think about sustainability. Typically, they can be split into a risk or reward-based approaches. We encourage people to consider both perspectives as they bring different actions and targets.

If you believe there is risk to your business, by not being more sustainable, and being able to authentically evidence it, you are not alone.

Environmental

From an environmental perspective, many companies fear losing points on tender submissions as they had no credible carbon reduction plan. To resolve this, they typically, take action to measure carbon footprint to scope 3 and create a plan to get to net zero by 2050.

By focussing on the benefits of a carbon reduction plan, bottom line savings can be made. One of our wholesale clients looked at their full Scope 3 emissions for opportunities to improve. They saved significant carbon for themselves AND their largest client by reducing the number of products they repackaged from 82% to 43%. Carbon savings came from less packaging, waste, vehicles involved, and miles travelled. They have saved money and made demonstrable progress towards net zero while reinforcing their key client relationship.

Diversity and inclusion

Diversity and inclusion are a big part of sustainability and a challenging issue for organisations. There is a risk to be being perceived as lacking diversity and just issuing a suite of statements and policies as a solution. Policies are not enough anymore. A client in financial services absolutely saw this as an opportunity to address talent gaps. They have set themselves ambitious targets for 2030 to get a genuine diversity of thought and cultures in the business.

What did they do? They started with education, embraced a D&I calendar with communications and events to build awareness. This continues to generate stories and collateral that supported recruitment initiatives. They are already getting more diverse candidates for vacancies and winning the ‘fight for talent’.

Strategy and collaboration

A large proportion of business, follow a ‘me too’ Sustainability strategy. Doing just enough to comply. A facilities management client recognised that none of their direct competitors were doing anything other than ‘me to’ on sustainability. They invested time to understand their impacts, benchmark measurements and set targets to progress.

They reached out to their key customers to understand what was important to them. One key account, responded enthusiastically, recognised the potential value add, and piloted a new sustainability program with them. This has led to additional business with this account, and a strong proposition for tenders going forward.

In conclusion

The biggest risk we see - doing nothing. Sustainability is not going away. Being passive risks losing customers and staff. The good news is that there is still competitive advantage to be gained by early movers.

www.sustainablex.co.uk

❛❛With our clients, we

see different approaches when they think about sustainability. Typically, they can be split into a risk or reward-based approaches. We encourage people to consider both perspectives as they bring different actions

and targets. ❜❜