Sunil Veddam, Senior Director of Sustainability at leading consulting firm Capgemini highlights the company’s sustainable solutions for companies across the public and private sectors.
ith over 55 years of history, global consulting leader Capgemini is striving to lead sustainable transformation for its clients in a rapidly evolving business world. Working across a wide range of sectors, Capgemini prides itself on giving its clients the tools they need, regardless of their industry.
Sunil Veddam, Senior Director of Sustainability at Capgemini, celebrates this approach.
“We take a lot of pride in being sector agnostic,” he says. “My team and I operate with no preconceived notions. This means we don’t have any restrictions in terms of choosing a specific sector to work with. We have a unique range of expertise across the team, which means we’re able to offer a wide range of sustainability strategies to our clients.”
As a Senior Director of Sustainability, this is more than
just a buzzword for Sunil – rather, it’s a philosophy that should factor into any business strategy.
“When we talk to our clients about sustainability, we say that you have to be sustainable by design or by default,” Sunil says. “It’s not rocket science, it’s doing what needs to be done. Of course, there are technical and financial challenges in creating a more sustainable company, but what we try to explain to our clients is they shouldn’t be thinking in terms of sustainability targets – instead,
they can break it down into smaller components where even small changes can make a significant difference.
“For example, if a client is making a change to their systems, such as transferring data from a physical location to the cloud, we can help them understand the sustainable benefits of the endeavour. In doing so, something that was seen as purely a performance optimisation objective is now associated with energy efficiency and reducing
“When we talk to our clients about sustainability, we say that you have to be sustainable by design or by default”
Sunil Veddam, Senior Director of Sustainability
their carbon footprint. By helping businesses understand how such initiatives would have a sustainability benefit, change makers within that company are able to push those projects through more successfully.
“This approach helps the client realise that they don’t need to think outside the box when it comes to being sustainable, but that it can be achieved within the boundary of the programmes that they’re running. That way, it's not an additional expense or investment for them, rather it is a return on the investment in the form of improved efficiencies.”
To ensure Capgemini is offering cutting-edge sustainability solutions, the company has pioneered the Capgemini Research Institute, a global think tank ranked amongst the best in the world for research
quality, which has published over 25 research reports and points of view in 2023 covering nearly 670 organisations.
“Thought leadership is a core value in the company, and we work hard to remain an active player in the conversation,” says Sunil. “The Capgemini Research Institute is a pioneer in accelerating thought leadership and sustainability.”
One industry Capgemini has worked with in depth is the public sector, which Sunil credits as leading sustainable change in many areas.
“The public sector is the driving force when it comes to implementing sustainability policies,” says Sunil. “The government defines what needs to be done, how and when, so there are clear national targets that must be met. This means
when we work within the public sector, we’re often looking at more long-term strategies. Some public sector entities will say to us ‘If you’re delivering a solution or transformation programme for us, and we have to reach Net Zero in the next 15-20 years, will this particular programme help us achieve our sustainability goals and can this programme accelerate our approach to become net zero? What data points and key indicators can you provide us that will allow us to demonstrate that I’m making significant progress?’ To me, this is an absolute game-changer. Rather than sustainable practice being just an attractive option, it has become mandatory in the public sector.”
While there has been significant overhaul within the public sector, in the private sector Sunil believes the fashion industry has been commonly overlooked as a force for sustainable change.
“When we talk about sustainability, we’re referring not only to the environment, but social and governance aspects,” says Sunil. “The fashion industry has played a huge role in driving social sustainability, but it’s often seen as a sector that has a lot of social aspects that need to be properly addressed and tackled. Many of the companies we work with have been consciously trying to work
with governments and the larger stakeholder community to give back to society and ensure that workers across the supply chain are employed within ethical practices.
“The fashion industry has actually done a lot of work when it comes to driving sustainable change, as it’s one of the few sectors that has taken sustainability as a mainstream topic early on and championed it.”
As a complex industry with many components – particularly in the case of larger brands – part of Capgemini’s work with the fashion industry has not only been improving a client’s sustainable practices but also their transparency and traceability as well.
“Fashion retail brands we work with have huge, complex supply chains, and it can be difficult for them to have a handle on the sheer amount of data,” says Sunil. “We help these companies ensure that they have the right metrics and data traceability for any product, from sourcing the materials to the factories and then the distribution process. As consumers become more environmentally conscious, they now want to know if the products they are buying have been sourced from a place where there has been social exploitation or environmental degradation. With the data we’re able to provide our clients, they can
now for example supply a QR code that a consumer can scan to find out where a product was sourced, who worked on it and how much money they were paid per hour. This, alongside other checks and balances, has been implemented to ensure there are no environmental or social issues within the companies we work with.”
But regardless of industry, one challenge currently facing many companies is getting a clear view of value chain emissions.
“There are three different scopes of high-level emissions categories,”
explains Sunil. “Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy. Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions, those not included in Scope 2 that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.”
This third scope can often account for the majority of a company’s emissions, but Sunil stresses that they can be the most difficult energy emissions to measure.
“Emitwise has smart solutions that help connect companies and suppliers to different sources of data. The company can then bring in its own innovative aspect of analysing the data and giving the right insights to the enterprise”
“For a larger company with a lot of suppliers, it can be very challenging to collect that data from all the suppliers, and not just the Tier 1 or Tier 2 suppliers,” says Sunil. “As laws change, there are more and more expectations placed on these companies. It’s a continuous challenge for both the companies
to collect this data and suppliers to provide this data.
“When we’re talking to a company about these critical issues, we often bring in partners. For instance, Emitwise has smart solutions that help connect companies and suppliers to different sources of data.
The company can then bring in its own innovative aspect of analysing the data and giving the right insights to the enterprise. This data can give the client clarity on their emissions and help them begin to address scope three carbon emissions.”
However, as new regulations are introduced, Capgemini must continue to innovate in order to guarantee the company can offer the most advanced solutions to sustainability challenges for its clients.
“We’re constantly vetting new concepts to see how we can use technology to achieve sustainability at the top level,” says Sunil. “I believe blockchain has huge potential when it comes to bringing enterprises together in a collaborative platform where companies can access consistent, verifiable data.
“This can bring more positivity to the industry, and then you see more collaboration happening. Technology is not only accelerating sustainability outcomes but making businesses as a whole more sustainable through the sharing of ideas.”
