Bringing together an expert panel of contributors: Ryan Skinner, Research Director for Net Zero & Climate Risk at Verdantix; Sarah Ivory, Environmental Sustainability Manager at the international hotel and restaurant company Whitbread; and Daniel Fairweather, Divisional Director, Food Systems and Biodiversity at global insurance and reinsurance firm Howden Group, moderated by Pete Hay, Risilience Director of Brand, Content and Comms, the webinar discusses how and why sustainability is becoming a business imperative.
“Compliance itself has suddenly become so much more dominating,” said Ryan Skinner, reflecting on the latest annual Verdantix benchmark study that asked 400 sustainability leaders to name the primary driver of their business organisations’ sustainability strategies. “We’ve seen more mandatory rules come into effect, be ratified or threatened and I think that has suddenly got a lot of businesses focus.”
Sarah Ivory reflected on the challenge of reconciling what needs to be done now with longer-term aims and objectives: “You name it, we face up to it in the moment and that has forced us to prioritise. Some of the things we’d like to be doing and telling people about have taken a bit of a back seat to allow us to get ready for compliance, and the things we really have to do now.”
The panel all spoke to the critical role of financial quantification to surface the costs to business of climate-and-nature-related risks and opportunities. According to Skinner, financial quantification is “a huge eye opener for business and rings the alarm bells”. Daniel Fairweather agreed: “Organisations need to look at the cost of carbon, pollution and use of nature, and get it on the balance sheet – show its worth. Having the costs makes the business case, opens doors and starts the conversation, overnight.”
Building the business case for sustainability is key, as is “finding the finance team and bringing them in from the start,” said Ivory. “We are a small team in a big company. If we were siloed, we would not be able to deliver anything. The biggest lesson is working with the financial team from the start. We need to have the commercial answers and demonstrate the value of doing things.”
Skinner advised sustainability leaders to “bring issues into the radical present… to make it a clear and present part of the organisation’s business strategy.” Acknowledging the pressure to focus on immediate priorities, Fairweather cautioned organisations facing an evolving regulatory landscape to prepare for what’s to come: “The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is screaming down the tunnel at us. We recognise sustainable businesses tend to be more profitable but resources are tight and many businesses are doing what they must do now, not looking to the future, which could be an emerging issue as we move forwards.”
Other topics under discussion included the importance of data to provide a common language to make the case for sustainability across departments and inform strategic decision-making. Concluding the hour-long webinar, each of the panel offered their top tips to progressing sustainability as a business priority.
Watch the webinar, A practical view: how to make sustainability a strategic business priority, now available on demand.