Sustainability Statement
Developing a Sustainability Vision
A small manufacturing company that serves customers in the B2B and B2C sectors wanted to effectively communicate its commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance as a way to elevate its brand value to customers, employees and prospective investors.
Industry
Manufacturing
Scope
Sustainability / Vision
Timeline
Eight weeks
Impact
Operational Outcome
0
0
0
Sustainability Outcome
Business Need
The company was founded on the principles of environmental and social responsibility and best practices such as zero waste packaging and sustainable procurement were already in place, but no one outside of the company knew it. Since sustainability was integrated into corporate culture, employees were values-aligned, yet a shared vision and articulation of the company’s sustainability commitment was lacking.
Corporate leadership engaged our team of advisors to perform a structured Discovery, Materiality Assessment and ESG Statement that reflected the current ESG performance of the company, while mapping out a vision forward.
Challenges
Solutions
The team utlilized a three-phase process that included a Discovery, Materiality Assessement and an ESG Statement.
The Discovery allowed us to gather information and input related to the core business objectives, company mission/vision, competition, and strategic plan. This provided the team with the context to formulate a near-term plan of execution, while keeping the longer term goals of the company in mind.
The Materiality Assessment began with an intentional stakeholder mapping process that identified and ranked stakeholder groups. Once stakeholders were identified, a set of survey tools were created to capture input and feedback on various components of the Company’s ESG performance.
The ESG Statement was drafted to reflect:
1) the company’s ethos and clear commitment to ESG
2) a shared language that is understood and valued across stakeholders
3) commitments the company has made to continuous ESG improvement
Outcomes
As a result of these advisory services, the Client is now positioned to:
Expand its customer base to include those with commitments to sustainability and/or sustainable procurement policies that commit a percentage of annual spending to vendors with strong ESG.
Raise capital, especially from sustainability- and ESG-minded investors.
Create a scalable company culture that fully reflects their values and commitment to sustainability.
Leverage a new tagline that emerged as a result of refining the ESG vision and language.
New potential opportunities prompting the need for a sustainability statement that resonates with stakeholders and aligns with the company’s values and core business.