Enabling a new operational mindset on sustainability

Gavin Fallon, General Manager, UK, Nordics, South Africa Board International explains why businesses are now putting sustainability at the forefront of their priorities.

The climate change crisis has put sustainability in the spotlight. Businesses are now asked to clearly demonstrate their own sustainability credentials as consumers become more aware and demand increased transparency.

Sustainability is now a priority for businesses, across the products and services they develop and deliver, the customers and talent they attract, and the perception of their investors. If a hotter, scarcer, more unpredictable yet more transparent world is the new normal, how can companies operate to ensure a prosperous future for everyone?

Prioritising environmental challenges and opportunities and treating them as central to business success or failure, means making big operational and strategic decisions aligned to the high priorities they are. Business is entering a new era of sustainability led decision-making, where the ability to continuously pivot products and services, adjust forecasts and teams, plus demonstrate & respond to new levels of ethical understanding and expectations of sustainable operations and supply chains, is crucial.

This calls for a new operational mindset, where c-suite leaders are empowered to lead with a holistic view of new sustainability-linked performance indicators in real time, aligned to changing consumer, regulatory, and market demands.

For most of us as consumers, it is regular interactions with grocery brands where our consumer habits would make the biggest difference on sustainability, from plastic waste, through to carbon emissions. Grocery brands own huge stores and warehouses and transport food across large distances, all of which use up lots of energy. They also generate food waste, and operate supply chains, where sourcing raw materials such as palm oil impacts both wildlife and forests if it’s not done sustainably.

Brands we come into daily contact with run operations which can impact both the environment and society at a local and global level. As consumers, we expect brands to make a simple promise to us – that they aspire to offer the most sustainable option possible.

With the right operational mindset, brands can tackle sustainability in their supply chains. This starts with modelling their business, not only with a different set of values but also in a more structured way. Business decisions matter, but decisions on sustainability are the biggest of all, with a huge social & environmental impact for everyone.

Big decisions on sustainability require vital planning, underpinned by real-time and accurate supply chain data. This is why every business should move to establish a digital boardroom, where senior executives have the ability to monitor sustainability KPIs across their supply chains in real time. They should also be able to interactively stress test the impact of sustainability-based scenarios and outcomes, leading to more-informed decisions.

Across most industries, supply chains can be long and complex, with the potential for social and environmental impacts to occur at various stages of a product’s lifecycle.

Take, for example, a board meeting where a new sustainable supply chain strategy is being discussed to decide which direction the company should take. With multiple routes available, how should a decision be made? A digital boardroom will provide the answer. Such a decision-making platform allows anyone in the room to discuss potential outcomes, perform complex scenario modelling, and build strategic plans as they go, all underpinned by accurate data.

A company considering the development of a new sustainable product, for example, needs to answer several questions before moving forward. Are there sustainable resources to deliver the new product? Will the new project require investment in people, and if so where are they located – are the working practices sustainable and ethical? What about raw materials? What are the current environmental implications of transporting the product to market? What are the regulatory and brand implications of releasing the product both now and in the future?

All of this vital data across the supply chain often requires a manual and time-consuming process to calculate in Excel but can instead be answered with a few clicks of a mouse. The use of forward-planning scenarios and predictive analytics can help determine the social, environmental, and sustainable impact of a project, providing a far more robust outlook and enabling more considered sustainable decision-making. Crucially, this takes place in real-time, not over the course of weeks when spreadsheets have been recalculated. The board can input different sustainability scenarios and base decisions on robust data analysis.

Transitioning to a new operational mindset requires buy-in and a cultural shift – a desire for the organisation to be truly both more sustainable and data-driven. However, with the technology available today, it makes little sense that decision-makers can’t react at the speed the business needs. Implementing a digital, data-driven boardroom is central to any new operational mindset on sustainability, and effective planning will be the difference between success and failure.