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sustainability solutions
We help you kick start, accelerate or operate your sustainability program.
Today’s sustainability landscape.
Sustainability is a must in today’s world and evidently asks us to challenge the status quo by reconsidering the way we interact with society and our environment. From the selection of materials to the manufacturing, transportation, use and disposal of our products, everything has an impact on the planet. To successfully embed sustainability into your organization requires planning, ideas, engagement, and action from key stakeholders.
Sustainability is a generic term that focuses on People, Profit and Planet. It has been broadly applied to characterize improvements in areas like natural resources over exploitation, manufacturing operations (its energy use and polluting sub products), the linear consumption of products, the direction of investments, citizen lifestyle, consumer purchasing behaviors, technological developments or business and general institutional changes.
More specific is the ESG where organizations develop strategies and plans in the aeras of Environment,
Social and Governance. ESG analysis considers how companies serve society and how this impacts their current and future performance.
A third approach is the one of CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility) of organizations that overlaps with
Sustainability and ESG. CSR stands for the voluntary integration of
companies’ social and ecological concerns into their business activities and their relationships with their stakeholders.
Being socially responsible means
not only fully satisfying the applicable legal obligations but also going beyond and investing ‘more’ in human capital, the environment, and stakeholder relations.
The quality of a CSR strategy and compliance can be monitored via ISO 26000.
Why do organizations invest in sustainability?
Many organizations have started their sustainability journey and are allocating significant resources and investments. Besides the intrinsic motivation for sustainable business, it helps these companies improve their reputation, become a more attractive employer for new talent, and addresses the current and future legal obligations. They become a better company. Most leading global companies see the need and benefits and have made sustainable business part of the core way of working.
Some companies still need to start this journey or are waiting until they have to act (external pressure). Sometimes, a lack of knowledge on sustainability or a misunderstanding of the benefits drive this hesitancy. However, in the near future, every organization needs to address sustainability and integrate it in their business model.Private equities are valuing their portfolio and future investments more and more on ESG performance, in addition to financial results. This becomes an important reason for organizations to focus on ESG.
Organizations are on many different levels of maternity and ambition on sustainability.In 2001 MIT and CSCMP published a study on sustainability in the supply chain. The study combines the critical success factors for a successful implementation of sustainability business with the maternity and profile of an organization (table below).
Large organizations (Standard, High Effort, and Leaders) have, in most cases, a strategy and plan in place. However, some large organizations just started and are still at the Dreamer phase of focused on compliance in their value chain. Most of these organizations have dedicated resources allocated to sustainability. Their biggest challenge is stakeholder engagement that is required to get internal and external support and participation to create ideas, implement them and drive necessary change. The potential to collaborate with external stakeholders e.g., suppliers and clients is huge, but often untapped. Best practices are not shared in a structured way and opportunities to scale are missed out.
Surprisingly, many large and leading organizations are willing to collaborate with peers and other companies to share their experiences and support others. This is a change in thinking when it comes to sustainability. This is a huge untapped potential for many organizations.
Smaller and medium organizations are, in most cases, on the maturity? level between low effort and compliant. In many cases, there is a lack of knowledge on sustainability and legal obligations. The customer requirements and opportunities are unknown or not addressed. There may be limited resources and internal attention focused on sustainability. Their biggest challenges may be to start a program and strategy, combined with an effective implementation roadmap and reliable reporting. They may need help to get started and/or support the program on an ongoing basis.
Maturity level
Critical success factors
Source: CSCMP 2021 State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report
How do governments and public institutions support sustainability?
International governmental guidelines are becoming more prescriptive on sustainability and ESG regulations. The United Nations set clear targets by the UN Sustainability Development Goals (UNSDG’s) and new agreements have been made on the UN Climate Chance Conference COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.
The European Union (EU) launched a new directive in 2021, called CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) that requires active and obligatory planning, execution and reporting of ESG initiatives of companies with business in the EU, starting 2023. To meet the new global targets and obligations, organizations need to change and act.
The new European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires all companies with activities in the European Union that meet two out of the three following criteria below to publish an annual sustainability report as part of the annual report.
The goal of the Directive is to:
CSRD has strict timelines. It requires to get started in 2022, in order to be ready in 2023.
USE UN SDGs as a framework to create a strong strategy and drive performance.
All organizations profit and have a clear interest driving progress toward the Sustainable development goals (SDGs) outcome. Thus, create shared value, help to secure the ability to generate capital and shareholder value over the long-term. Support resilient communities, reliable access to natural resources, and an educated and healthy population to support their workforce. Let purpose become the focus to create long-lasting positive change.
How can we help you?
SPARQ360 offers three solutions that fit to the various levels of maturity and ambition. We can accommodate and help regardless of where you are in your sustainability journey. Our three solutions are:
SPARQ360 offers three solutions that fit to the various levels of maturity and ambition. We can accommodate and help regardless of where you are in your sustainability journey. Our three solutions are:
01 Initiate.
Helping you as an organization to get started and deliver results.
02 Accelerate.
Helping you as an organization to get to the next level.
03 Operate.
Helping to support you manage a sustainability program in an effective way on an ongoing basis.
01 Initiate.
This service helps companies that do not have any or limited sustainability or ESG plan in place. It also helps organizations implement the plan and related reporting faster and more effectively. We help you get started and deliver results.
02 Accelerate.
The SPARQ360 acceleration program is a highly effective combination of people, process and technology that helps organizations to get to the next level. You may have a strategy in place and ownership of the initiatives defined but are not seeing the change and results. We can help increase awareness, engagement, and collaboration between internal and external stakeholders like employees, multiple branches, suppliers, partners, and clients.
Our unique methodology, the SPARQ360 Value Circle™, is developed to activate collective intelligence in organizations and generate maximum engagement and participation of stakeholders in sustainability programs.Our technology supports awareness, engagement, and ideation programs. It creates transparency, provides gamification options and has clear workflow processes to guarantee effective execution and results. It is available as a stand-alone technology or combined with SPARQ360 processes and consultancy support. We are flexible adjust to our needs.
We can help you to:
- Design and implement a people engagement and change management program that accelerates your sustainability journey.
- Increase engagement of all stakeholders via our 2-round dialogue software, that supports safe, anonymous but open exchange of opinions and discussions between participants. The machine learning and artificial intelligence functionality clearly identifies priorities and gives important insights.
- Increase awareness of sustainability, inspire people, and provide training via our awareness and gamification software that motivates and incentives employees to participate in the program.
- Increase the use of ideas and experiences of all stakeholders and support collaboration between them to create the best solutions in the most effective and scalable way via our ideation software and processes.
- Implement the ideas and copy best practices via a clear workflow process, lean based processes, and project management software.
- Provide transparent management information and progress via customized program dashboards
Our technology is unique and combines the functionality of multiple systems under one button in our SUSTAINABILITY360 app. This app is modular and can be configured to the customer needs. It provides all required information on stakeholder engagement, training, ideas, best practices, Carbon reporting, management dashboards and related news.
Your full sustainability Journey under one button.
03 Operate
Many companies do not have the dedicated or skilled resources to manage a sustainability program in an effective way on an ongoing basis. SPARQ360 can support you on an ongoing basis as an extension of your team with the focus on your sustainability plans and execution. We can manage the key activities to initiate the program as referred to in our service module Initiate and to accelerate where needed. We will support you in the ongoing reporting and provide you with industry updates on sustainability to drive new indicatives. Our sustainability specialists will act as your own team members and represent you to your external stakeholders like suppliers and clients. This solution can be customized to your needs to assure the perfect fit with your team.
When using SPARQ360 as your partner to initiate, accelerate or operate your sustainability or ESG program, the effectiveness will increase double digit. Our Initiate solution helps you to get started if you do not have the resources or knowledge. Our Accelerate solution increases awareness and engagement of the stakeholders. It inspires people, generates, and collects innovative ideas and implements them effectively.
Our Operate solution combines the best of both and provides you with ongoing tailor-made support.
An effective sustainability and ESG program will help you to:
Improve your brand reputation
Meet customer requirements
Attract new labor talent and increase employee satisfaction
Meet legal and governmental obligations
Increase your contribution to People, Profit and Planet in a sustainable way
creating momentum, delivering results.
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