Sustainability - September 2022

September 2022 | sustainabilitymag.com

Zero-Waste: Improving air quality a ‘win-win’ for climate and health

Global education: Embedding education into ESG

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12 - 13 OCT 2022 STREAMED & IN PERSON QEII CENTRE, LONDON

SHAPING THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL PROCUREMENT & SUPPLY CHAIN 3,000+

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Join us at PROCUREMENT & SUPPLYCHAIN LIVE LONDON Showcase your values, products and services to your partners and customers at PROCUREMENT & SUPPLYCHAIN LIVE LONDON 2022.

Brought to you by BizClik Media Group PROCUREMENT & SUPPLYCHAIN LIVE LONDON, the hybrid event held between 12th-13th October is broadcast live to the world and incorporates two zone areas of SupplyChain LIVE plus Procurement LIVE in to one event.

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From keynote addresses to lively roundtables, fireside discussions to topical presentations, Q&A sessions to 1-2-1 networking, the 2-day hybrid show is an essential deep dive into issues impacting the future of each industry today.

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The Sustainability Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BECCI KNOWLES CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER

SCOTT BIRCH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ PRODUCTION MANAGERS

PHILLINE VICENTE JANE ARNETA MARIA GONZALEZ

CREATIVE TEAM

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH REBEKAH BIRLESON JORDAN WOOD DANILO CARDOSO CALLUM HOOD VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGERS

KIERAN WAITE

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

MARTA EUGENIO ERNEST DE NEVE THOMAS EASTERFORD DREW HARDMAN MARKETING DIRECTOR

JASON ANDIKA-SMITH MARKETING MANAGER

LAUREN ALICE TYE PROJECT DIRECTORS

BEN WIGGER

MEDIA SALES DIRECTORS

LEWIS HAMMOND MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

EXECUTIVE ASSITANT

JORDAN HUBBARD CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN CEO

GLEN WHITE

FOREWORD

“It’s time for governments, organisations and individuals to wake up and smell the coffee (while we still have land capable of growing it)”

SUSTAINABILITY MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

Time for change This latest issue of Sustainability magazine arrives on the eve of our Sustainability LIVE London event, and at a pivotal time for climate change. Droughts not seen in 500 years are impacting countries from China to the Czech Republic. Record temperatures are being recorded too as the world burns.

It’s time for governments, organisations and individuals to wake up and smell the coffee (while we still have land capable of growing it). It’s easy to be distracted by headline-grabbing geopolitical turmoil and looming economic woe, but anyone who believes climate change is not the primary existential threat we all face today is going to have a bleak tomorrow.

Join us for Sustainability LIVE London on 7-8 September and find out how business leaders are addressing the key issues while also making a brighter future for their company. You really can’t afford to miss it.

BECCI KNOWLES

becci.knowless@bizclikmedia.com

© 2022 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

sustainabilitymag.com

5

CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 10 Big Picture 12 Trailblazer: Elba Pareja-Gallagher 14 Five Minutes With: Jordan Appleson

20

SMBC Group

Data-Driven Procurement: The SMBC Strategy

42

Global education

Embedding education into ESG

50

DC BLOX

Supercharging southeast states with critical infrastructure

70

Zero-Waste

Improving air quality a ‘win-win’ for climate and health

62

Gender parity

Why is it still not a level playing field

78

Supply chain

No longer a law unto itself

Accreditation S H OW YO U R business C A RES A B O U T equality

E D U C A T E

•

M O T I V A T E

•

E L E V A T E

It’s about doing more C L I C K H E RE

BIG PICTURE

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September 2022

Sustainability LIVE is back, bigger and better

Business Design Centre, London, UK

Following the inaugural Sustainability LIVE conference in February 2022, we were overwhelmed by the number of people that were engaging with the show.

As the audience grows, the event grows, too, and, as a result, Sustainability LIVE London takes place in a bigger venue and features exhibition stands sponsored by influential organisations. Even better, more leaders take to the stage, providing insights from panel discussions and keynotes that will inspire change and provoke new working relationships.

sustainabilitymag.com

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TRAILBLAZER

ELBA

Sustainability director, UPS

Pareja-Gallagher Diversity and inclusion has the power to harness the creativity of all levels and generations of employees

E

lba Pareja-Gallagher is the Founder of UPS Trailblazers, which makes her inclusion in this month’s Trailblazer even more fitting. Now more than 8,200 members strong, the group works to advocate, educate and innovate for environmental, social and governance (ESG) causes around the globe.

Elba is a bilingual finance and strategy professional and leader with more than 20 years of broad experience in finance, investor relations, marketing and strategy. She has also lived as an expat in Singapore and Hong Kong.

An APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional, Elba holds a Master’s of Science degree in Supply Chain Management.

She has long been an enthusiastic champion for change and for finding new ways of thinking about problems.

As such, Elba applies Blue Ocean Strategy principles to building business cases with cross-functional partners, innovating with a mindset for shareholder value creation.

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September 2022

“I advocate for the use of the three E principles of fair process to build execution into strategy: Engagement, Explanation and Expectation clarity.

People’s minds and hearts must align with a new strategy so they carry out not just the letter, but the spirit of corporate initiatives,” she says.

Elba believes in the power of diversity and inclusion to harness the creativity of all levels and generations of employees.

She also practises Blue Ocean Leadership. There are four pillars to this: • Focus on acts and activities • Connect leadership to market realities by engaging people who confront them • Distribute leadership across different management levels • Pursue high-impact leadership acts and activities at low cost.

Elba’s motivations in her current role and position Elba has a passion for sustainability and for helping people develop their leadership skills. This enthusiasm is the foundation for the UPS Sustainability Trailblazer, giving UPSers the tools, resources and inspiration to be agents of change.

The bigger picture Change often starts with one person’s vision, but Elba – as UPS’s sustainability director of stakeholder engagement – knows it takes

a multitude of like-minded people to solve big problems.

“There’s power in numbers,” she says, “and our vision is to have 540,000 incredibly motivated UPSers driving awareness and innovation by actively advocating for sustainability.”

Elba helped launch UPS Sustainability Trailblazers in 2021 to advance UPS’s bold ESG goals. She counts getting the programme up and running during a pandemic as the first of many successes to come. And, like all great Trailblazers, she isn’t talking about her own.

“There’s a collective force that comes from bringing diverse mindsets together,” she says. “It’s an energy that generates ideas and solutions on how we can protect our environment, eliminate waste,

“There’s power in numbers”

save money and create new products and services.”

What’s new The UPS Sustainability Trailblazers, an ESG employee ambassador programme, is upping the game to drive change. The sub-committee, Trees a Crowd, is utilising a UPS crowdsourcing tool called Think Tank, offering employees an easy way to submit sustainable ideas.

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

Jordan Appleson

CEO, Hark

Hark is an Energy Analytics and Industrial IoT company on a mission to improve efficiency, maximise yield and reduce waste “ As a business, we're trying to help our customers improve the way they perform; that means increasing the efficiency of their systems, reducing waste and maximising output”

Q. TELL ME ABOUT HARK, WHEN IT WAS ESTABLISHED AND WHAT ITS VISION WAS AT THAT TIME?

» In 2016, as a life sciences technology

company. We had built some technology to monitor temperature and humidity for compliance in life sciences. Originally, the vision was to make it really easy to 14

September 2022

connect to these life sciences assets to get data on compliance. But fast forward a couple of years on, and we were being asked to do all sorts of things, like monitor radiation in uranium mines or pollution. In 2018, a lot became about energy.

We have since built our technology to tackle all types of assets to get data out of them. As a business, we're trying to help our customers improve the way they perform; that means increasing the efficiency of their systems, reducing waste and maximising output. That's really what we're trying to achieve today

at Hark – and that's across all the sectors, from chemical processing to facilities management to supermarkets.

Q. WHAT WERE THE KEY DRIVERS IN THIS EVOLUTION?

» LWhen we were exploring and getting

into the market with our technology, what became apparent was how difficult it was to connect all of these disparate legacy assets – building management systems, energy metres, even energy storage and wind farms. Customers and companies really want to get data out of those assets to drive efficiency and energy gains, and get complete visibility – that was very, very difficult for them..

The driving force behind what we do now is making it as easy as possible to connect to those assets as a first priority; that's where we've driven a lot of our

R&D, a lot of our product. Now, we’ve got energy analytics tools, we’ve got downtime reduction tools, alarm tools for assets, and that's where this was born out of – connecting to assets that really are important in driving sustainability.

After all, how can you manage what you can't measure?

Q. YOU'VE GOT A MANTRA THAT'S SET ON THREE PILLARS. CAN YOU TALK US THROUGH THOSE?

» Actually there’s two mantras: our

Culture and our Values. So when we talk about improving efficiency, we talk about improving the efficiency of a production line, improving the efficiency of a building, improving the efficiency of a business process that is related to those assets. For instance, it could be reducing maintenance, people unnecessarily going out to an alarm or an asset, when they can remotely configure it. sustainabilitymag.com

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FIVE MINUTES WITH...

We’ve also got the whole reducing waste aspect, and that's fundamentally about reducing energy waste and waste costs like we do with Sainsbury’s; we save them a substantial amount in electricity costs, fully automatically, using our software.

And then it's all about increasing yield, which is a by-product of reducing waste and increasing efficiency. And, when we talk about increasing yield, it could be the output of a production line, it could be the output of an energy asset, the output of how a building performs or how an asset performs for that building. So that's really what we're striving to do with our technology and our customers today.

“ When we talk about increasing yield, it could be the output of a production line; it could be the output of an energy asset; the output of how a building performs or an asset for that building”

Q. SO, YOU HAVE TOOLS THAT CONNECT SYSTEMS AND THEY PROVIDE ALL THE INFORMATION BUSINESSES NEED TO MANAGE THEIR ASSETS. CAN YOU TELL US A BIT MORE ABOUT HOW THEY WORK IN APPLICATION?

» Sure. There are three core products,

or tools. We have Hark Connect, which is our software that makes it really easy to connect to industrial assets, building management systems and energy metres to get that data out. Those tools are being used by companies and our customers who just say to us, “we need to get the real-time data out” – from buildings or individual assets.

Our second tool is Hark Analytics. For companies that don't want to build their own analytical tools or automation tools, it provides all the kind of the graphs and the dashboards and the alarms and the alerting to say, “hey, you've got an alarm

The Hark Platform is helping alert Energy Managers and Asset Operators to abnormalities across their estate, informing actions such as preventative maintenance, regulatory compliance, asset control and energy management.

16

September 2022

or a problem with this asset”, or “you are using more energy than you should be” on a given basis. It can be used to send text messages or emails, or call other systems or send data into cloud systems that can be then used to do other analytics.

The final tool and product we've got is something called Hark Energy Tools. Hark Energy tools is specifically designed to deal with half-hourly energy and water utility data. It takes data from energy, gas metres and water metres, and provides analytical tools on how much is being used at different times of the day. This tool is good for cost analysis and forecasting, and is very useful for

companies that already have a lot of that data. They want to know things like, “am I using too much energy overnight?

Where's my biggest opportunity for cost saving? If I've got a hundred buildings, are they all operating at relative efficiency and if not, why?”. This is the tool that can be used to take that analysis and automate it. So those are the three areas we are particularly focusing on today.

sustainabilitymag.com

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Creating Digital Communities

Data-Driven Procurement: The SMBC Strategy

WRITTEN BY: İLKHAN ÖZSEVIM PRODUCED BY: MIKE SADR

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September 2022

sustainabilitymag.com

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SMBC GROUP

ll things procurement with Frank Wadsworth A Managing Director and Chief Procurement Officer, Americas Division at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation

F

rank Wadsworth is a Managing Director and Chief Procurement Officer for the Americas Division at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). Frank has spent his career in financial services, having worked at some of the biggest names in banking: Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Bloomberg, and now at SMBC. Beginning his career in technology, Wadsworth gradually transitioned to assume a variety of vendor management leadership roles.

Prior to joining SMBC, he led global supply chain operations for Bloomberg, while also establishing a third-party risk management programme for the firm, transforming a fragmented, reactive approach into a cohesive one. This role at Bloomberg was preceded by a position leading strategic vendor management for J.P. Morgan’s Investment Banking Division (IBD), as well as Procurement Professional Services for the bank globally, with several billion dollars of spend under management.

Wadsworth’s experience includes responsibility for driving multi-milliondollar savings, improving process efficiencies, and reducing risk by identifying and establishing outsourcing, offshoring, and shared services opportunities.

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September 2022

As Chief Procurement Officer for SMBC, Wadsworth is leading the development and implementation of a multi-year target operating model for the organisation to provide a centralised, strategic, and valuedriven procurement function that will foster the timely delivery of quality goods and services to the business.

“After finalising our target operating model towards the end of 2020, we hit the ground running in 2021, growing the procurement team, successfully implementing the Coupa platform, and standing up procurement operations for four of nine of our group companies,” says Wadsworth. “We are roughly one-year old as a procurement organisation following our first implementation, and I’m proud to say we’ve accomplished a significant amount in a short period of time.

“We’ve onboarded more than 1,000 suppliers with 75% of supplier invoices processed electronically – a significant paradigm shift from one year

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WNS Denali Links with SMBC to Digitalise its Procurement Ecosystem Outcome-driven companies like SMBC partner with WNS Denali to operationalise their procurement function: Business Unit Leader Alpar Kamber explains Alpar Kamber is Business Unit Leader of WNS Denali, the global business process management company he founded in 2008 and that is now under the umbrella of WNS Global Services. WNS Denali is a leading procurement solutions company providing procurement, strategic sourcing and supply chain services to 90+ global 1000 companies and offering consulting, source to contract execution, procurement operations, market intelligence, capability enablement, and digital solutions and services to procurement professionals.

Banking and financial services are a key sector for WNS Denali, where the conversation usually starts with a discussion around the client’s level of maturity in their procurement journey, the current state of the organisation, and where they want to take it over the outlook period.

This is how the relationship with SumitomoMitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) started.

“SMBC is a great example of the value we can bring. They are in the midst of a digital transformation, and implementing a platform

that will enable and bring more efficiency to procurement. “So we’re working with SMBC to enable digitalisation of their contracts and help them onboard suppliers with maximum efficiency. Also, we set up a help desk: there’s a lot of transactional work too. Though you want to automate as much as possible, you still need to put human checks in place to make sure that you can deal with exceptions!”

This is the first phase of enabling digital and transactional procurement at SMBC. The next step is effectiveness: “Strategic thinking around category management, decision-making about which suppliers to work with, taking into account pricing and innovation trends, matching best-of-breed suppliers with the company’s requirements and deriving value from its thirdparty resources – these are among the essential considerations WNS Denali is helping SMBC with on its digital journey.”

At the top of most of his clients’ concerns right now are cost and talent. Both of these challenges threaten the viability of the supply chain in ways WNS Denali’s services and technology can mitigate significantly.

Learn more

SMBC GROUP

Data Driven Procurement: The SMBC Strategy

ago, when all invoices were processed manually. We’ve loaded more than 2,500 contracts into Coupa, with a steady number of new contracts authored and approved through Coupa and executed through DocuSign every day.”

“Separately, we’ve established a supplier spend analytics data lake with PowerBI dashboards that allows us to quickly and easily assess spend across multiple regions, businesses, and spend categories.”

The importance of data to the procurement process “Data is exceptionally important to everything we do,” says Wadsworth. “As Peter Drucker, a leading management consultant and renowned author, once said, ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure,’” “When I first joined SMBC in 2020, it was important to understand the existing supplier base and historical spend. A simple spend report by business and high-level spend categories was a manual and time26

September 2022

intensive exercise, pulling data from six ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning systems), ten general ledgers, filtering, rationalising the data, and, finally, producing a simple PPT spend chart.”

Access to good, accurate data in a timely way is critical to making informed business and purchasing decisions. Wadsworth says: “Given our long implementation runway with Coupa combined with the need to have quick and easy access to spend data across the regions, I partnered with Visionet

“ Data is exceptionally important to everything we do” FRANK WADSWORTH

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, SMBC AMERICAS DIVISION

SMBC GROUP

FRANK WADSWORTH TITLE: M ANAGING DIRECTOR AND CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER OF THE AMERICAS DIVISION INDUSTRY: FINANCE LOCATION: NEW YORK, USA

EXECUTIVE BIO

Frank Wadsworth is a senior financial services executive specialising in strategic vendor and risk management. Wadsworth is known for transforming business/ procurement operations and thirdparty supplier engagements to reduce risk, create value, and take out cost.

As the Chief Procurement Officer for SMBC Americas Division, Wadsworth is currently leading the development and implementation of a multi-year target operating model to provide a centralised, strategic, and value-driven procurement function that enables the timely delivery of quality goods/services to SMBC businesses.

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Star, a leading provider of compliance technology solutions, is now partnering with SMBC to give them the tools they need to monitor and better understand employees’ charitable donations, private investments, board memberships, and other outside business activities.

David Rowland, Star’s Chief Technology Officer, says, ‘We admire forward-thinking companies like SMBC that value their employees and want to make sure they are secure about how their personal dealings could affect their professional careers.

Through the STAR Platform–which monitors for employee conflicts of interest–our clients can ensure that issues are flagged and reconciled in a timely manner.’

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SMBC GROUP

to build a supplier spend analytics data lake.” In addition to tracking supplier spend information, it was equally important for SMBC to assess KPIs for its procurement operations function to better understand transactional throughput and processing times, with a view to identifying any bottlenecks in its process.

“Since deploying Coupa, 75% of our invoices are now processed electronically with a mean days-to-pay of three days from the time an invoice is approved,” he says. “Applying a data-driven and analytical approach is foundational to making informed decisions and appropriately aligning our procurement strategy and operations.”

DID YOU KNOW...

SMBC was founded more than 400 years ago when the Sumitomo and Mitsui family businesses came together, bringing together their diverse products and services and expanding their business. The Mitsui Bank was established in 1876, followed by the establishment of the Sumitomo Bank in 1895. Two decades later, the first branch was opened in the U.S. in San Francisco and in 1918, the New York Agency was established.

In the intervening years, the Sumitomo Bank and the Mitsui Bank opened different offices and branches, including in Brazil and Los Angeles. The two banks merged in April 2001, forming what is now SMBC. The firm has a long-standing tradition of serving clients and businesses around the world with more than 86,000 employees across the globe in 140 offices in nearly 40 countries.

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September 2022

How the supplier-spend analytics data lake helps identify supplier-spend trends and reveals savings opportunities Procurement at SMBC has created a supplier spend analytics data lake armed with PowerBI reporting capabilities, allowing both the procurement function and stakeholders across the bank to have quick, easy access to supplier spend reports for SMBC businesses and regions.

Authorised users can report on supplier spend, applying dynamic reporting filters to view supplier spend data by: • Region or country • Line of business/group company • Category of third-party goods and services

Through analysis of historical spend data SMBC’s procurement function and key stakeholders can identify: • Savings opportunities • Concentration/fragmentation of suppliers across businesses and/or spend categories • Negotiations leveraged through aggregate purchasing power (region, business, etc.)

What technology is SMBC utilising to optimise its procurement operations?

SMBC went through an extensive RFP process to assess several leading sourceto-pay technology solutions. “We ultimately selected Coupa as our technology of choice, and I’m pleased to say that, looking back

over the past year – and six implementations later – we made the right choice,” says Wadsworth. “Coupa is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that is highly configurable and interoperable across various modules or source-to-pay functions. Aside from its robust functionality, Coupa provides an intuitive, user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate. Coupa also regularly enhances the product to stay ahead of customer needs and market developments”.

SMBC’s centralised, strategic and value-driven procurement function Establishing a centralised procurement function allows SMBC to shift from a tactical transactional purchasing approach sustainabilitymag.com

31

We Listen, Innovate, And Deliver Engineering Agility Like No Other Visionet empowers businesses to drive innovation through modern technologies. We enable digital transformation through digital solutions like PartnerLinQ and HauteLogic that cater to all supply chain needs while our Live Commerce service leverages video streaming to create immersive eCommerce experiences.

Visionet Systems – Enabling Businesses to Navigate the Future of Supply Chain Visionet Systems’ CEO Arshad

Masood highlights the growth of its PartnerLinQ platform

which is empowering industries

to achieve supply chain resiliency Most CEOs who saw 100% growth during COVID would be eager to proclaim their recent successes and focus on the changing

digital dynamics. But it’s telling that Arshad Masood, founder and CEO of

Visionet Systems, initially takes me back to 1995 and ‘Y2K’ era to explain how, from the outset, he was focused on differentiating the company by focusing on multi-

task automation. It’s fair to say his vision has paid off. From a $1mn investment,

Visionet Systems has grown into a $250mn annual turnover business, operating with 8,000 brilliant minds worldwide, with a

diverse range of products, solutions, and services.“You have to focus on the value to the customer, and go and solve their problems in an innovative way –and

that’s where the longevity of the business

comes,” he said. The company’s 25+ years

of experience provided solid foundations at a time of great uncertainty amid the COVID chaos. Today, under a catchy alliterative slogan –‘Digital

Defined, Digital Delivered’ –Visionet’s

customers are as broad as they’re long,

encompassing F&B and logistics to

healthcare and fashion. Key to its recent success has been its supply chain

vertical cloud application, PartnerLinQ, which is a hybrid

integrated platform for supply chain

connectivity with all analytics, tracking and visibility built in. It’s designed to

handle very rapid on-boarding. “That’s

why we have grown 100% in the last two

years, it’s such a versatile tool, and selling itself,” he said. “We can place PartnerLinQ in the middle of company’s ERP and

e-commerce systems, and connect with other vendors, in a matter of

weeks.”Arshad Masood is proud to have built a company which is employee-

owned and futuregeared.“ Our number one purpose is to serve our employees

–and you can’t do that unless you serve your customers, so both are equally important.”

SMBC GROUP

1,000+

We’ve onboarded more than 1,000 suppliers with 75% of supplier invoices submitted and processed electronically – a significant paradigm shift from a year ago, when all invoices were processed manually

2,500+

We’ve loaded more than 2,500 contracts into Coupa, with a steady number of new contracts authored and approved through Coupa and executed through DocuSign every day

SMBC GROUP

across the region to a strategic value-driven procurement model, leveraging digital transformation while providing improved governance and oversight, and hiring professional procurement experts to guide and influence business purchasing decisions.

“In building out the centralised procurement organisation, I first focused on establishing a team to support day-to-day procurement operations, contract management, and invoice processing, aligning closely with our implementation of Coupa,” says Wadsworth.

“More recently, I’ve established our strategic sourcing function staffed with senior-level category leads across our largest spend categories, such as professional services, IT, corporate services, real estate, HR services, travel, and marketing.”

“As Peter Drucker, a leading management consultant and renowned author once said, ‘you can’t manage what you can’t measure’” FRANK WADSWORTH

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, SMBC AMERICAS DIVISION

SMBC’s category leads have several key priorities on the horizon this year, according to Wadsworth: “First and foremost is to assess the supplier footprint and historical spend for their respective categories, establishing savings targets together with an action plan to realise those savings.” sustainabilitymag.com

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SMBC GROUP

“ Given the transformational nature of this implementation and the centralisation of procurement for the region, our primary focus will be on implementation planning and change management activities across the region” FRANK WADSWORTH

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER, SMBC AMERICAS DIVISION

“A second priority is to establish a strategic sourcing engagement model and policy with the business to ensure that procurement is in front of buying decisions. It’s important to establish a supplier portfolio-based buying approach to ensure we are selecting the appropriate suppliers based on business requirements, supplier market segmentation and capabilities, and to ensure we are leveraging aggregate purchasing power when making our buying decisions.”

“The third priority is to establish quarterly business reviews (i) internally with key stakeholders and business representatives, and (ii) with our strategic and critical suppliers, to ensure visibility into their pipeline of prospective deals as well as provide performance feedback.”

According to SMBC’s Christine Ackerson, Head of Sustainability, Americas Division: “We are committed to fostering a society in which today’s generation can enjoy economic prosperity and wellbeing to pass on to future generations.

Ackerson explains: “SMBC’s ten-year sustainability roadmap – called GREEN X GLOBE 2030 – is focused on the environment, community, and next generation, including initiatives to address climate change by committing to becoming net-zero in its global operations by 2030, and net-zero in its loan and investment portfolio by 2050, all while supporting our customers in the transition to a decarbonised society.” The firm’s ESG priorities for procurement are: • Achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its operations by 2030 (including company travel, but excluding suppliers currently) • Procure renewable energy (goal of100% renewable energy for its operations by 2024) • Promote supplier spend diversity • Develop green procurement guidelines (including greener office supplies, green leasing for office space)

SMBC’s approach to sustainability The firm’s procurement team is working closely with the SMBC Americas Sustainability Committee and ESG team to incorporate ESG goals into the procurement policy and to execute against each of the ESG goals for procurement. sustainabilitymag.com

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SMBC GROUP

Separately, SMBC’s procurement is contracted with Util, a London-based fintech company. Util has extensive data-mining capabilities used to identify individual company performance against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which are helpful in assessing SMBC’s suppliers against its ESG corporate goals and identifying exposure to reputational, legal, or financial risk.

The future of SMBC’s procurement: the next 12-18 months By the end of this year, SMBC plans to have Coupa fully implemented in the U.S. and procurement fully operational for the region.

The implementation of Coupa is significant, in that it includes the full suite of core functionality: • Supplier onboarding (SIM) • Contract lifecycle management (CLMS) • Invoice processing (P2P) • eSourcing • Coupa Risk Assess to support SMBC’sthird-party risk management programme “We’re also breaking new ground this year with the implementation of eSourcing and Coupa Risk Assess,” says Wadsworth.

“Given the transformational nature of this implementation and the centralisation of procurement for the region, our primary focus will be on implementation planning and change management activities across the region.”

Value Delivered According to Wadsworth, “While we are still on our Procurement transformation journey, we have delivered significant value to the Bank to-date” : 38

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• Increased visibility into supplier spend and contract management • Centralised contract repository, contract templates and full contract lifecycle capabilities • Electronic supplier invoicing with improved governance to ensure invoices are tied to approved purchase orders and underlying contracted commercials • Auditable, traceable source-to-pay workflow with visibility into “who has the ball” • Checks and balances through predefined workflows, approval chains, and designated tolerances to mitigate rogue spend • Alignment with Bank and regulatory requirements.

SMBC GROUP

SMBC’s partnership with Visionet Arshad Masood is the Managing Director and CEO of Visionet Systems Inc., a leading digital technology solutions company that helps their global clients increase agility, reduce costs, and enable business and technology outcomes.

Visionet played a critical role in designing and developing SMBC’s supplier spend analytics data lake and PowerBI dashboards.

The Visionet delivery team hit the ground running, engaging with SMBC’s business partners across multiple group companies and regions to identify, map, ingest, and rationalise data from six ERP/AP (Accounts Payable) systems with ten general ledgers into a single repository.

“While it may seem like a relatively straightforward exercise, it was exceptionally difficult,” says Wadsworth. “Working with fragmented systems, data models and inconsistent data values presented numerous challenges, all of which the Visionet team addressed head on.”

In addition to the design and development of the data lake, Visionet developed PowerBI reports that are not only easy to use and exceptionally versatile, but also graphically sophisticated. “Visionet’s client partner, Rajasshri Phadnaik, played a key role in managing our overall relationship and went beyond the call of duty to drive programme success,” says Wadsworth. “We

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SMBC GROUP

are currently exploring other opportunities with Visionet to leverage their cloud services capabilities.”

OTHER PARTNERS THAT HELP SMBC TO ACHIEVE ITS GOALS WNS Denali When SMBC kicked off its procurement transformation in 2021, they leveraged WNS Denali’s procurement subject matter expertise to assist in SMBCs Coupa sourceto-pay activities. WNS Denali was a key partner for contract meta-data extraction in support of the Coupa Contract Lifecycle Management implementation. Additionally, when SMBC Procurement hit a critical point of onboarding suppliers into Coupa, WNS Denali provided support with supplier

“ SMBC’s 10-year sustainability roadmap – called GREEN X GLOBE 2030 – is focused on the environment, community, and next generation, including initiatives to address climate change by committing to becoming net-zero in its global operations by 2030, and net-zero in its loan and investment portfolio by 2050, all while supporting our customers in the transition to a decarbonised society” CHRISTINE ACKERSON

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY, SMBC AMERICAS DIVISION

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onboarding/setup activities. WNS Denali is an excellent partner willing to quickly spin up teams to meet project deadlines, taking an agile and nimble approach and providing support as needed.

Dell EMC Dell Technologies products play a crucial role as the strategic data processing platform to run SMBC's core infrastructure.

Additionally, SMBC utilises Dell as part of the end-user compute experience. Both are critical use cases for which SMBC relies on Dell’s global footprint to deliver and ensure no disruption to its day-to-day business.

Consistent and transparent communication between the executive account team, internal stakeholders and Procurement plays a key role to ensure commitments are kept or contingency plans are made to address (potential) global supply chain issues.

Star Compliance “In today’s world, there is so much digital information to track, manage, and attempt to put to proper use. As a financial institution, we must be ever vigilant about maintaining proper controls and compliance in a dynamic regulatory environment.”, said Wadsworth.

So, when SMBC went to market in search of such a product, Star Compliance encouraged the business to leverage proofof-concept methodology to ensure that requirements were met or exceeded prior to full investment.

Sand Hill East In 2019, SMBC engaged Sand Hill East, a strategic venture and fintech advisory firm, to assess the Bank’s technology organisation and their readiness to support the transformation journey and leverage

the capital markets fintech and innovation ecosystem. As part of this ongoing engagement, Procurement was introduced to a fintech company called Util by Roseann Palmieri, the President of Sand Hill East, to help track ESG performance metrics for key SMBC suppliers.

Sand Hill East works with new and growthstage technology companies to advise and

develop new technology ventures from ideation to go-to-market strategies, to scale their businesses and accelerate growth.

SMBC benefits tremendously in that it gains insight and early access to new and disruptive technologies.

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EMBEDDING

EDUCATION INTO

ESG 42

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GLOBAL EDUCATION

How much work needs to be done globally to ensure businesses understand what constitutes a good ESG strategy?

H

WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

ow can businesses use their position to extend educational opportunities into the communities in which they operate so that the cycle continues? We speak to a leading academic and a Sustainability VP at a global packaging company to find out.

Dr Abby Efua Hilson is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at Kent Business School. Her research covers the accounting implications of the environmental and social impacts of various industries, including detailed projects on the oil, gas and mining industries in developing economies and work to support female gemstone miners in Africa.

Hilson makes it her mission to demonstrate to students that all businesses are consumers of the natural environment and that consumption should be captured in the very same way in which other values are noted and accounted for.

Hilson says that, while some see ESG as a critical component of overall corporate strategy, as a key to facilitating value creation long-term, others see it as little more than “window dressing”. She puts this down to a lack of consensus on the role and impact

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Every Choice Counts Acting on climate On the road. In our homes. How we make and do things. We have choices every day about how we use energy and how we individually and together contribute to acting on climate change.

DuPont Mobility & Materials is actively innovating to deliver solutions that enable our customers to reduce their climate impact. And, we are working with our suppliers to improve the carbon footprint of our raw materials. We also are committed to continuously improve how we produce our materials – reducing GHG emissions, sourcing electricity from renewable sources and, in the long run, moving toward carbon neutral operations.

Acting on climate change is a road we all can follow.

Let’s keep moving ahead.

dupont.com/mobility-materials/sustainability Visit us at the K Show – Hall 6, Stand C43 – to learn more.

DuPont™, the DuPont Oval Logo, and all trademarks and service marks denoted with ™, SM or ® are owned by affiliates of DuPont de Nemours, Inc. unless otherwise noted. © 2022 DuPont.

“ I WANTED TO ENSURE THAT THE COMPANIES COMING INTO GHANA COULD DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY, AND IT STARTED MY DRIVE TO WORK ON SUSTAINABLE PROJECTS” DR ABBY EFUA HILSON

SENIOR LECTURER IN ACCOUNTING, KENT UNIVERSITY

of ESG, giving rise to this dichotomy of perception on its applicability to, and utility in, business. Hilson adds that, in addition to the myriad political approaches to ESG, there is a lack of skilled human resources capable of operationalising it in business.

“Ideally, legislation should precede and guide corporate approaches to ESG. However, global legislation on ESG that extends beyond carbon capture and worker safety is lacking. For small businesses, short-term financial pressures and a lack of a clear long-term strategy means that ESG is often pursued ad hoc and is de prioritised vis-a-vis other business priorities. Yet, investor appetite in, and demand for, ESG continues to grow, as issues such as employee diversity, climate change and executive compensation become increasingly important corporate concerns.”

Dr Abby Efua Hilson Growing up in Ghana, where her dad was an accountant, Dr Hilson says she “loved numbers as a kid”, so, when she later moved to Canada, finance seemed to be the most fitting option.

During her MBA education, she realised that accountancy and finance “wasn’t all about big bank balances, but it could be used as a means for good”. That’s when she decided to delve into academia, planning to research areas that “might make a positive impact on society”.

Dr Hilson studied a PhD at Aston University, Birmingham at the time that commercial quantities of oil were being drilled in Ghana, her home country. Having seen the devastation on local communities famed for oil drilling – such as Nigeria and Angola – she didn’t want to sit back and watch the same thing happen there. sustainabilitymag.com

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GLOBAL EDUCATION

Kent Business School Alumni University of Kent

Hilson isn’t alone in thinking that the recent economic downturn could hamper sustainability efforts. A recent Gartner Survey of 128 CFOs and CEOs identified the most selected areas that will likely be cut first in the face of continued economic disruption: with 39% of the vote share, investments for improved sustainability and reduced environmental impact was identified as the second most likely area to face cuts, after mergers and acquisitions.

“Cuts to M&A are an obvious choice after record activity in 2021 and with rising interest rates significantly increasing the cost of financing such deals,” says Randeep Rathindran, Vice President of Research in the Gartner Finance practice. “It’s more surprising to see sustainability so close to the chopping block, because CEOs rated it as a top strategic priority for the first time in 2022, and ESG disclosures are increasingly becoming enshrined in legislation.”

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September 2022

Meanwhile, 46% of CEOs and CFOs said spending on workforce and talent development would be the last area to cut, and 45% of respondents said they would cut digital investments last.

Technology investments are also the least likely to be cut first, with just 23% of respondents placing it in their top two.

“Perhaps the biggest barrier to strengthening corporate approaches to ESG is the lack of education on how to operationalise it in different contexts,” says Hilson, adding that such education is required

“ THERE IS AN URGENT NEED FOR BUSINESSES, ACADEMICS AND CIVIL SOCIETY TO FORGE PARTNERSHIPS WITH THE GOAL OF CONCEIVING STRATEGIC BLUEPRINTS FOR OPERATIONALISING ESG” DR ABBY EFUA HILSON

SENIOR LECTURER IN ACCOUNTING, KENT UNIVERSITY

from the board level through to the operational level of businesses.

Hilson says that, currently, most ESGcertification programmes are skewed toward investing and reporting. “There is an urgent need for businesses, academics and civil society, therefore, to forge partnerships with the goal of conceiving strategic blueprints for operationalising ESG.” According to Hilson, this begins with formulating guidelines which can be aligned with country/community/ public sector level social and environmental initiatives.

“The most successful ESG strategies implemented to date are those which have been woven into the Balance Scorecards of organisations, and which speak directly to their corporate priorities, position businesses to anticipate future risks and opportunities effectively, and which go beyond state/ country legislation and priorities.” sustainabilitymag.com

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GLOBAL EDUCATION

Speaking at BizClik Media Group’s SUSTAINABILITY LIVE LONDON event in February this year, Clark tol both the live and virtual audiences of education’s importance in helping embed sustainability practices into the worlds of commerce and industry.

Clark said that he senses “an increased sense of panic” among executives, as the pressure mounts for organisations to meet 2050 net-zero targets. “There's increased scrutiny and a need for increased transparency,” he said. “And then there’s Scope 3 emissions.”

Science-based sustainability standards are helping, according to Clark, because they bring clarity and consistency. This has seen “alignment across the value chain, from raw materials to consumers”.

But he also said that serious challenges remain around educating organisations to change behaviours and mindsets, with part of the problem for sustainability professionals being the sheer scale of the job.

“If you're a sustainability professional, you're dealing with climate change, biodiversity, water use, land use, and other things besides. The sheer number of initiatives can be mind-boggling.”

He feels that the most effective way for the world to move forward on sustainability is for organisations to unite on important sustainability goals and, by sheer weight of numbers, help educate the wider commercial world around best practices.

Why working together works Clark gave the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as an example, an organisation founded by the round-the-world yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur to promote circulareconomy initiatives. In collaboration with 48

September 2022

“THE NOTION OF COLLABORATION AND EDUCATION THAT HAS BEEN CHANGING BEHAVIOURS AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE IS ALSO NOW HAPPENING AROUND PLASTICS AND PACKAGING WASTE” DAVID CLARK

SUSTAINABILITY VICE PRESIDENT, AMCOR

the UN Environment Programme, the foundation created the Global Commitment programme, which has united an estimated 500 organisations behind the common goal of creating a circular economy for plastics.

Amcor is among those who have signed up to this.

Clark said: “Back in 2018, a small number of companies – including Amcor – got together because we knew plastics recycling doesn't work. Many of the products we're designing are not recyclable. This is because they’re designed to perform well, and endof-life was never part of the design criteria.

“We felt we needed to send a clear signal to the wider packaging world that we are committed to designing our packaging to be either recyclable, reusable or compostable

Education and collaboration key to sustainable change David Clark is Sustainability VP at Amcor, an American-Australian global packaging company.

David leads Amcor’s global sustainability agenda. He works closely with the global packaging company’s research-and-development and innovation functions to integrate sustainable design and social responsibility into Amcor’s product development and innovation processes.

David holds a B.S in Physics from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

by 2025. We also pledged that we're going to work together to increase the amount of material that can be collected. So, at the beginning of 2018, this was a pledge that was made by a small number of companies.

“Companies signed up to the Global Commitment account for more than 20% of the world’s plastic packaging, so we've created a similar level of alignment that we're seeing with science-based targets around packaging.”

He added: “The notion of collaboration and education that has been changing behaviours around climate change is also now happening around plastics and packaging waste, and this is leading to more investment in the infrastructure we need to make this happen.”

Educating the next generation of leaders For a corporation grappling with how to operationalise ESG, the priority should be building in the needs of – and extending education opportunities to – the communities that its operations impact.

“A workforce that understands and buys into an organisation’s ESG strategy is likely to pass on knowledge to their families,” says Hilson.

Aligning ESG strategies with public sector initiatives may create economic opportunities for businesses, with the lessons learned providing invaluable material for teaching in schools. “By working directly with academics, businesses may create further opportunities for up-andcoming graduates to accumulate practical knowledge on ESG, which can then be applied beyond their university education.” sustainabilitymag.com

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SUPERCHARGING SOUTHEAST STATES WITH CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WRITTEN BY: ALEX TUCK PRODUCED BY: LEWIS VAUGHAN

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DC BLOX

DC BLOX is the data centre provider with a difference.

By connecting communities in the US southeas to the world, they are enabling massive economic growth

D

C BLOX provides secure, reliable Tier III data centres and robust connectivity to businesses in growing markets, with a particular focus on the southeast of the United States.

Passionate about driving progress in communities where the foundational infrastructure for the digital economy is limited, CEO Jeff Uphues says that it has been a “really exciting journey” since they were founded eight years ago.

“The whole premise behind us was to serve local mid-size markets that didn't have the critical infrastructure, like some of the bigger cities like LA or New York had done.

We've always been in the southeast and around the Atlanta market.”

Systematically putting in data centre after data centre throughout the southeast required purchasing more landed markets and then integrating them all together within a private, dark fibre or high-bandwidth connectivity solution.

This fabric of interconnected data centres is designed to “serve locally and connect globally on behalf of our customers”, adds Uphues, and the approach “brings the market to major new levels of connectivity”.

DC BLOX took a ‘bottoms up’ approach in first looking at the markets, size, and growth, as Uphues explained.

“When you take the landscape around the southeast United States, you've got some real growing cities here. You've got Charlotte, Atlanta, Nashville; other markets like Greenville and Charleston in South Carolina,

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JEFF UPHUES CEO, DC BLOX

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DC BLOX

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September 2022

“ THIS FABRIC OF INTERCONNECTED DATA CENTRES IS DESIGNED TO SERVE LOCALLY AND CONNECT GLOBALLY ON BEHALF OF OUR CUSTOMERS” JEFF UPHUES CEO, DC BLOX

and Birmingham and Huntsville in Alabama.

Not to mention many cities throughout Florida. The southeast is a fast-growing environment and there are great economic incentives for businesses to move here. You don't have these harsh cold winters either, so it's ideal for infrastructure,” said Uphues.

Uphues is proud of the services DC BLOX provides, as they understand that businesses are facing increasing challenges that have a profound impact on their ability to compete and grow in their markets.

Infrastructure is considered vital to the way businesses operate and deliver services and must connect customers to infrastructure in their markets and across the globe. With the pandemic accelerating digital transformation – mass migrations to the cloud, increased mobility and big data – increased agility is required.

With the urgent need for new physical and network infrastructure, DC BLOX works with businesses as well as with state and local governments to build that infrastructure, and to develop the workforce and culture to grow their tech economies.

Myrtle Beach Cable Landing Station – a hurricane-proof gateway to the world In a hyperscale landscape dominated by the major cloud companies in terms of internet transit and capacity, the industry has seen a shift from the telco internet – birthed from the likes of AT&T and Verizon – to the next generation of cloud services. As these cloud services needed to be distributed further outside of core markets, the cloud internet emerged.

One of the ways the cloud internet expands is internationally through subsea connections. DC BLOX were able to win the Myrtle Beach project with a large hyperscaler, one of a number of initiatives that DC BLOX are involved in alongside hyperscalers.

“Of all the cable landing stations on the eastern seaboard of the United States, Myrtle Beach was directly halfway between New York and Miami, and it's a centralised place that had many core benefits: there's not a lot of barrier islands to go around; the shelf of the subsea floor is a little shallower in areas before it drops off into deep water; it is close to the burgeoning data centre and communications hub of the southeast US, and, aside from hurricane-proofing the building – which is common in Miami – it has a great climate”. sustainabilitymag.com

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The Next Generation in Modular Data Centers GENIUS Modular Data Centers are purpose-built, compact, economical, energy-efficient and quick to deploy with an impressive speed to market of five to eight months. GENIUS delivers the flexibility of a stick-built data center for edge or colocation providers while enhancing cloud computing operations, reducing carbon footprints and lowering CapEX costs.

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DC BLOX

Dark fibre ‘interstate’ As part of the philosophy of serving locally and connecting globally, Uphues explained that DC BLOX took the added step of building a dark fibre ‘backbone’ extending directly from Myrtle Beach, running by Charleston and Augusta, all the way into Atlanta and landing in Lithia Springs, “where there's a lot of hyperscale data centres being built”.

“We've done this by building a multi-duct conduit and dark fibre system that allows us to connect our cable landing station all the way through to core hyperscale data centres and key points of exchange along the way, like Digital Realty and Telex in downtown Atlanta, or some of the hyperscale data centres that are out in Lithia Springs.”

Uphues describes it as “the expressway from the ocean floor all the way into Atlanta.

DC BLOX presses the ‘easy’ button for our customers, not only having data centres

along the way, but now owning this dark fibre that allows us to create a unique capacity for providing connectivity”.

“We have this single purpose to serve locally and connect globally on behalf of our customers. Though we have customers with locations in Germany or AsiaPac, we never truly lived our purpose and vision until we won the Myrtle Beach project,” said Uphues.

Southeast as an Edge location DC BLOX continues to expand, currently running five core data centres with the CLS and a seventh recently announced and many more to come – all to a modular infrastructure that’s right-sized for the market acting as connectivity exchanges that serve those markets.

“Just like you have core exchanges within larger markets, we've just extended those into the edge markets we serve. sustainabilitymag.com

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DC BLOX

Then, through this dark fibre, we are interconnecting all our sites together so all along the route, you have what we'll call ‘gateways’ functioning as access points for content to be deployed.”

Uphues continued: “They become connection points for rural cooperatives and cities to connect into that provides the capacity and Internet transit services needed to connect their local broadband networks from their communities to the world. So, in essence, our ability to empower the edge is also helping to bridge the digital divide in our region. It's an exciting time and we've got a lot ahead of us.”

With predictions suggesting there’ll be a need to double the size of network capacity in the next five-to-eight years, Uphues reflected on the core infrastructure that is needed. He asked: “How many conduit systems are available in the ground, where they can pull more cables or pull more fibre from, and how many fibres are available in the existing conduit systems?”

As part of the services that they focus on at DC BLOX, the first is the core infrastructure of data centres; the second is the interconnectivity between those data centres, as well as the interconnectivity between cloud companies and major connectivity exchanges; and, thirdly, high capacity data storage for customers that don't want to put data into the cloud, either because the data sets are too large and distant,there are latency issues, or interactiveness with the cloud is cost prohibitive.

These large storage arrays contain videos and images, genomic research and healthcare data, and lots of other data sets that are kept local in one of the markets, with network connectivity available between data centres to distribute and protect data where it is needed.

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MYRTLE BEACH CABLE LANDING STATION In partnership with global hyperscale partners, DC BLOX is redefining the hyperscale Cable Landing Station with its new facility in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which is set to open in the second quarter of 2023. The CLS will be located in the International Technology & Aerospace Park (ITAP).

Download ebrief for Myrtle Beach CLS

DC BLOX has a higher purpose To conclude, Uphues suggested that many people in the data centre business today have come out of the real-estate business and are still just real-estate focused. While he acknowledges that they founded the industry, this was primarily just to erect a building filled with computers containing storage and power.

“The DC BLOX team is made of technology industry veterans. We have always taken the approach that this is, at the end of the day, a technology service that you're buying; whether you're renting a cabinet of equipment in a building, you’re moving data to a public cloud provider, or you are backing up your mission critical data

DC BLOX

JEFF UPHUES TITLE: CEO INDUSTRY: IT SERVICES

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED STATES Jeff Uphues leads DC BLOX where he is responsible for setting and leading the company’s strategy, vision and execution in designing, building, and operating a fabric of interconnected, highly secure, Tier III-rated data centres across the US southeast.

Jeff is a 30-year veteran in the information technology industry having held C-suite leadership roles for Liquid Web, Cbeyond, Bandwidth, ACSI Network Technologies, MCI and WilTel. Jeff is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, Rice University’s Jones School of Business Executive Education programme in Finance and Accounting and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Arlington.

“DC BLOX PRESSES THE ‘EASY’ BUTTON FOR OUR CUSTOMERS, NOT ONLY HAVING DATA CENTRES ALONG THE WAY, BUT NOW OWNING THIS DARK FIBRE THAT ALLOWS US TO CREATE A UNIQUE CAPACITY FOR PROVIDING CONNECTIVITY” JEFF UPHUES CEO, DC BLOX

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“THE DC BLOX TEAM IS MADE OF TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY VETERANS” JEFF UPHUES CEO, DC BLOX

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DC BLOX

off-site . We are no longer selling services to facilities managers or CFOs, we’re selling into CIOs and CTOs. You’ve got to understand strategic IT – it’s not just a realestate business anymore.”

DC BLOX engages in the markets and contributes to them, too, minding local social and environmental concerns, to ensure the business maintains a higher purpose.

“In every market that we go into, we attempt to use local contractors. When you build a data centre, there's lots of different contractors you use. We try to take a percentage of our entire construction cost and say, ‘who are the disadvantaged and minority-owned businesses here that can help provide us services?’. We want to help the community and help them grow their business.

“Every market that we have is passionled by the executives and the people that we put there. So we hire local people with a connection to the community,” said Uphues.

There are many wide-ranging causes that DC BLOX supports, including women's shelters, food banks, and tech infrastructure – in the form of giving away thousands of computers through partner organisations and volunteering to help where needed.

“A laptop means the world to somebody when they have connectivity to explore it.

This group then provides training classes to them, partnering with school systems.

Our values are foundational to how we serve our markets and have a real impact on our culture.”

According to Uphues, the pandemic has taught us all that there's a lot to be said about having personal connections to the people with whom you work.

“It's taught us how to be more interconnected and stay that way. The growth of the cloud internet is happening everywhere. The remaking of the interstate and the additional capacity that is available is helping us to stay connected to each other locally and globally”.

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GENDER EQUALITY

GENDER PARITY:

WHY IS IT STILL

NOT

A LEVEL

PLAYING FIELD? New stats reveal that it’s going to take 132 years to reach gender parity. We owe it to future generations to act now to prevent it slipping further

WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

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September 2022

T

he World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report finds that, in 2022, the global gender gap has been closed by 68.1%, which sounds great on the face of it. In reality, however, this statistic actually means it will take another 132 years to reach gender parity. This is three decades longer than given in 2020, before COVID-19 impacted gender equality.

Having closed more than 90% of its gender gap (the only country to have done so), Iceland has been named the most gender equal country for the 12th year in a row. Finland follows in second place, then

Norway (3rd), New Zealand (4th), Sweden (5th), Rwanda (6th), Nicaragua (7th), Namibia (8th), Ireland (9th) and Germany (10th).

While 68.1% of the global gender gap has closed, the report shows the remaining gap is unequal, with regions progressing at different speeds. This is no coincidence, says Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director, World Economic Forum, and co-author of the report. “The overall correlation between the economies that perform well in terms of competitiveness and productivity is that those economies happen to be the very same ones that do well in terms of closing sustainabilitymag.com

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GENDER EQUALITY

“WE HAVE THE CHANCE TO BRIDGE THAT GAP AND MAKE THE INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT MORE EQUAL” FANNIE DELAVILLE EUROPE MANAGER, BPIFRANCE

the gender gap,” she says pointedly, calling for governments, businesses and other leaders to take firm action to address it.

Gender parity in the labour force stands at 62.9%, the lowest level registered since the index was first compiled. The World Economic Forum says the disproportionately negative labour market impact of the pandemic can be explained “partly through the sectoral composition of the shock and partly through continued disparities in care responsibilities that were exacerbated by the

pandemic”. The majority of care work fell on women as childcare facilities and schools were closed. Even before the pandemic, men’s share of time in unpaid work as a proportion spent in total work was 19%, while for women this was 55%.

Zahidi warns that as global crises compound, the rate of progress is at risk of slipping even further. “The cost of living crisis is impacting women disproportionately after the shock of labour market losses during the pandemic and the continued inadequacy of care infrastructure. In face of a weak recovery, government and business must make two sets of efforts: targeted policies to support women’s return to the workforce and women’s talent development in the industries of the future. Otherwise, we risk eroding the gains of the last decades permanently and losing out on the future economic returns of diversity.”

The global gender gap report explores the state of gender gaps in the workforce through complementary data available in the Economy Profiles as well as new metrics

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developed in collaboration with LinkedIn, Coursera, Hologic and WTW. “I think what is very clear is that there are gaps across the board and that we are not making sufficient progress,” says Sue Duke, Vice President, Head of Global Public Policy & Economic Graph, LinkedIn. “When it comes to female leadership, we do not have a single country or a single industry that has reached parity.

“There are key areas that the data points to that we need to start tackling immediately. If those barriers are going to go away for women all across the world, key areas like internal mobility, equal hiring practices and increased flexibility need to be addressed. Without those, women everywhere are going to continue to struggle

to break through, and, in particular, struggle to break through to the highest ranks of corporate and government organisations.”

Inequality should be challenged wherever it exists Candice Eaton Gaul is Diversity and Inclusion Leader at RSM, a leading provider of audit, tax and consulting services to entrepreneurial growth-focused organisations globally.

She says that progress made towards gender equality within corporate environments remains slow on a global scale. In multiple countries, there is increasing legislation and reporting requirements are being implemented to address gender inequality in corporate environments, she says, as well as to drive transformation towards equality.

“WE RISK ERODING THE GAINS OF THE LAST FEW DECADES PERMANENTLY AND LOSING OUT ON THE FUTURE ECONOMIC RETURNS OF DIVERSITY” SAADIA ZAHIDI

MANAGING DIRECTOR, WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

GENDER EQUALITY

“The way that these various pieces of legislation and public policy attempt to narrow the gender gap vary greatly, ranging from requirements of at least one woman in board participation, through to tracking and reporting on promotion, as well as recording recruitment and gender pay gaps throughout all occupational levels.

Eaton Gaul says that while this should be driven by equality as a moral imperative, there is also an economic benefit, in that increased diversity will better equip organisations to improve corporate culture, boost business performance and help support the advancement of solutions that overcome complex global challenges, and drive sustainability.

“Legislation and public policies may be a driver of change but for there to be a robust and pervasive shift towards gender equality

– or any form of equality – the need for it has to be internalised at an individual level.

If this does not occur, every time there is significant disruption it will expose the same deeply rooted vulnerabilities, as was the case during COVID-19.

“Every person in a corporate environment is presented with opportunities to do better

ABOUT SAADIA ZAHIDI Zahidi has a BA in Economics from Smith College; an MPhil in International Economics, from the Graduate Institute Geneva; and an MPA from Harvard University.

In addition, she has held a number of positions at the World Economic Forum, including: Economist (2003-2005); Head of Gender Parity Programme (2005-2011); Head of Civil Society (2008-2011); Head of Employment and Gender Initiatives (20132016); Head of Education, Gender and Work (2016-2018).

Zahidi is currently Head of the Centre for the New Economy and Society, and Member of the Managing Board.

She is Co-Author of Forum reports on Human Capital, Gender Gaps and Future of Jobs. Author, Fifty Million Rising (2018).

Zahadi is also a recipient of honours and awards, including: BBC 100 Women (2013 and 2014); Financial Times/McKinsey inaugural Bracken Bower Prize (2014); long listed for FT/Mckinsey Business Book of the Year (2018). Interests: future of work, education and skills, income inequality and using big data for public good. sustainabilitymag.com

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for those around them on a daily basis, to become allies and stewards of corporate communities. Showing stewardship by championing equality, in all forms, means taking a stand and using influence and decision making to drive change where it is needed.

“Inequality should be challenged wherever it exists. Individuals should not underestimate their ability and the related responsibility that they have to assist in driving change where it is needed. After all, if corporate organisations cannot make meaningful, long-lasting change toward greater equality and representation, how can we expect other parts of society to do so?”

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Manager at Bpifrance, gave a keynote address on ‘Profiting from Parity’, in which she said that the business community was missing a trick by not investing in women founders.

“Does anyone in the room know how much more revenue female entrepreneurs deliver for every dollar invested in their firm?

Is it 0.5% more? Is it 20% more?” Delaville then shocked the audience by revealing that it's actually twice as much. “So, for every dollar invested in a female company, the revenue they produce is twice as high as the revenue that a male entrepreneur would produce.”

Delaville said that female entrepreneurs have, by virtue of being a female, had to face so many obstacles to get where they are that their businesses are much more efficient than a lot of their male counterparts, as a result.

However, the female narrative around seeking investment needs to change too,

“WHEN IT COMES TO FEMALE LEADERSHIP, WE DO NOT HAVE A SINGLE COUNTRY OR A SINGLE INDUSTRY THAT HAS REACHED PARITY” SUE DUKE

VICE PRESIDENT, HEAD OF GLOBAL PUBLIC POLICY & ECONOMIC GRAPH, LINKEDIN.

ABOUT SUE DUKE Sue Duke leads and manages the rollout of the LinkedIn Economic Graph team, globally. In this role, the team’s work has focused on uncovering actionable insights around skill gaps, AI and emerging technologies, talent migration, gender parity, and education.

Prior to joining LinkedIn, Duke worked as Head of Public Policy at Google Ireland.

Before that, she was special advisor to the minister for communications, energy, and natural resources in the Irish government.

Sue holds a BA in European studies from Trinity College Dublin and a Master’s of Philosophy in International Relations from the University of Cambridge.

she said, as too many women see it as almost asking for charity.”That's not what you're doing. You're giving the investor an opportunity to invest in an amazing business idea and in the amazing person that you are, because you are building this great firm. You should be assessing them just as much as they're assessing you.”

Delaville said that more often than not, the amount women entrepreneurs ask for is far too low. “And, again, that speaks to the confidence that women might lack in their firms and in putting themselves forward in the investment process.”

Delaville said that, throughout the course of her work with the French investment bank, she has met so many fantastic women entrepreneurs. “2021 was a record year for female entrepreneurs in Europe. We have the chance to bridge that gap and make the investment environment more equal.” sustainabilitymag.com

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‘WIN-W

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So why aren’t we there yet?

Sustainability takes a deep-dive into the gap between setting targets for air quality and actually achieving them WRITTEN BY: BECCI KNOWLES

T

he long-term health effects from air pollution are well known: heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases such as emphysema. Air pollution can also cause long-term damage to people's nerves, brain, kidneys, liver, and other organs. Some scientists suspect it causes birth defects, too.

Fossil fuels – when will we learn?

A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the earth's crust. Placed under immense pressure for hundreds of thousands of years, the remains of dead plants, animals and other biological matter form matter that is extracted and burned as fuel. Coal, oil, and natural gas are examples of fossil fuels – and we use far too much.

While some types of air pollution – such as smoke from wildfires or ash from volcanoes – occur naturally, most air pollution is created by people, taking the form of emissions from, but not limited to, factories, cars, fridges and aerosol cans.

Just under 12 months ago, research from Harvard University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, revealed that more than 8 million people died in 2018 from fossil fuel pollution, significantly higher than previous research

suggested – meaning that air pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal and diesel was responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths worldwide.

The study, ‘Global Mortality From Outdoor Fine Particle Pollution Generated

by Fossil Fuel Combustion’, published in Environmental Research, was said to be based on “groundbreaking analysis” that enabled the researchers to directly attribute premature deaths from fine particulate pollution (PM 2.5) to fossil fuel combustion.

“The health gains we can achieve from getting off fossil fuels is twice what we thought it was yesterday,” said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard Chan School. “The Global Burden of Disease study estimated deaths from fossil fuels numbered 4.2 million in 2015, but, thanks to more rigorous science, we can now see that fossil fuels cause far more harm than previously understood. Now more than ever, we can see the healthier, more just and sustainable world that climate actions can deliver.”

Following publication of the 2022 WHO Air Quality Database,The World Health Organisation was also prompted to highlight the importance of curbing fossil fuel use and taking “other tangible steps'' to reduce air pollution levels. The report showed that sustainabilitymag.com

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“ IT IS UNACCEPTABLE TO STILL HAVE 7 MILLION PREVENTABLE DEATHS AND COUNTLESS PREVENTABLE LOST YEARS OF GOOD HEALTH” DR MARIA NEIRA

WHO DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH

almost the entire global population (99% – yes, 99%) breathes air that exceeds WHO air quality limits and threatens their health.

The right to healthy air According to the latest WHO Air Quality Database, a record number of over 6000 cities in 117 countries are now monitoring air quality, but the people living in them are still breathing unhealthy levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, with those in low and middle-income countries suffering the highest exposures.

This, despite the World Health Organisation being very clear in its advice that policies and investments supporting cleaner transport, energy-efficient homes, power generation, industry and better municipal waste management would reduce key sources of outdoor air pollution.

“After surviving a pandemic, it is unacceptable to still have 7 million preventable deaths and countless preventable lost years of good health due to

air pollution. That’s what we’re saying when we look at the mountain of air pollution data, evidence, and solutions available. Yet, too many investments are still being sunk into a polluted environment rather than in clean, healthy air,” said Dr Maria Neira, WHO Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health.

“Often, when we discuss the dangers of fossil fuel combustion, it’s in the context of CO2 and climate change, overlooking the potential health impact of the pollutants co-emitted with greenhouse gases,” says Dr. Joel Schwartz, Professor at Harvard Chan School and co-author of the study. “We hope that, by quantifying the health consequences of fossil fuel combustion, we can send a clear message to policymakers and stakeholders of the benefits of a transition to alternative energy sources.”

In response to its latest findings, The World Health Organisation made the very same point: that many of the drivers of air pollution – for example the combustion of fossil fuels – are also sources of greenhouse gas emissions. It also said that policies to reduce air pollution “therefore offer a win-win strategy for both climate and health, lowering the burden of disease attributable to air pollution, as well as contributing to the near- and long-term mitigation of climate change”. sustainabilitymag.com

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According to the United Nations, Member States recognise the need to substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals, as well as those caused by air, water and soil pollution and contamination by 2030. This is in addition to recognising the need to reduce the adverse per-capita environmental impact of cities – including by paying special attention to air quality and waste management, municipal or otherwise, by 2030.

However, there continues to be a disparity between recognising the need to improve air quality, and actually doing it.

The UK – a case in point?

According to Public Health England, air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to health in the UK, with between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year attributed to longterm exposure. It also estimates that the health cost of air pollution in the UK will be £60mn in 2025, rising to an eye-watering £5.3bn by 2035.

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avoid government fines. She says that, with the exception of “rare successes” – such as the Montreal Protocol – almost every climate policy commitment, pledge and target announced by governments around the world is belied by the fact that they are failing to deliver on their commitments.

“Often, the targets set out are so ambitious that they are simply doomed to fail. Sadly, the UK Government’s upcoming air quality targets are set to fall into this very same trap,” she says.

As part of its flagship Environment Bill, the UK Government has committed to introducing new air quality targets by October this year – so just next month. The Department for Food Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has indicated that these targets seek to limit air pollution to 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040, in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations.

While “admirable in principle”, Barnard suggests it’s highly unlikely that we will meet these targets in time. “Economic and financial burden aside, at present rate, patient numbers will skyrocket to 2.5 million air pollution cases by 2035. Yet DEFRA’s proposed target will be almost impossible for the UK to hit within the allotted time frame, meaning it is setting itself up to fail before it even begins. “ Barnard says there are several reasons why reducing air pollution to 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040 may be impossible.

“Firstly, DEFRA has not set out the legallybinding interim targets and robust implementation mechanisms required to actually deliver its ambitions.

“Secondly, DEFRA has so far failed to arm local councils with the tools, advice and funding to implement air quality measures at a local level. And, finally, DEFRA’s targets are arbitrary across the whole country, failing to account for the vastly different levels of air quality across different regions.”

Like many of us, Barnard believes that announcing an unrealistic target erodes public confidence and undermines its own

THE FUTURE WE WANT In 2012, with the release of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development’s outcome document, entitled ‘The future we want’, countries committed to promoting sustainable development policies that support healthy air quality in the context of sustainable cities and human settlements.

Three years later, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development outlined what it called “a road map to achieving sustainable development, environmental protection and prosperity for all”, recognising that air pollution abatement is important to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

“ DEFRA HAS NOT SET OUT THE LEGALLY-BINDING INTERIM TARGETS AND ROBUST IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISMS REQUIRED TO ACTUALLY DELIVER ITS AMBITIONS” KATE BARNARD

DIRECTOR, ENJOY THE AIR

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“ WE HOPE THAT, BY QUANTIFYING THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF FOSSIL FUEL COMBUSTION, WE CAN SEND A CLEAR MESSAGE TO POLICYMAKERS AND STAKEHOLDERS” JOEL SCHWARTZ

PROFESSOR AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

2022 UPDATE: WHO AIR QUALITY DATABASE The WHO air quality database compiles data on ground measurements of annual mean concentrations of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. The database has been updated regularly every 2-3 years since 2011. The data compiled in this database is used as input to derive the Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 11.6.2, Air quality in cities, for which WHO is the custodial agency.

The fifth WHO air quality database – the largest of its kind – covers over 6000 cities/human settlements (mostly cities) in 117 countries, indicating where air pollution levels and the related health risks are higher.

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purpose. “Local councils are not going to take expensive and time-consuming steps to hit a target they believe is impossible. Many will simply begin accepting air pollution fines as a form of taxation – a mindset which will have dire consequences for the health and wellbeing of the local population,” she says.

Set up to fail with ‘pie in sky’ clean air targets?

Barnard says that for DEFRA to achieve genuine air quality improvement, it must avoid ‘pie-in-the-sky’ targets and focus instead on delivering incremental change.

For her, the Montreal Protocol’s success lay in its impressive institutional support which provided funding and advice to signatories.

“Government must now follow suit.”

Thirty years on from Montreal, we have access to much more advanced technology that better sets us up for long-term change, taking into account the dynamic nature of greenhouse gases to continually adapt mitigation techniques.

Barnard offers this advice: “Local authorities need to be empowered to follow specific air quality roadmaps that reflect their specific circumstances. It is naive to assume that a London-based council close to an airport, for example, would be able to reach the same air pollution reduction targets as a rural constituency.

“If change is to be achieved, DEFRA needs to install a better incentive scheme for local councils to buy-in to its clean air ambitions. Incentivisation is far more effective than punishment and we should be recognising and rewarding cities for making improvements. Inspiring public interest too is critical to inspire behaviour change – the most effective tool against the nasty ultra fine particles and black carbon in our cities.

“Within the climate space, we have become accustomed to the sinking feeling as air quality targets are missed. In 2020, the Climate Change Committee predicted that the UK will miss its 2035 climate targets by a significant margin, having already failed on 17 out of 21 progress indicators.

“To stop this upcoming legislation from becoming just another in a string of failures, DEFRA needs to take this opportunity to develop locally focused air quality policies built on continuous feedback, knowledge sharing and support.

“The Montreal Protocol showed us the potential of a climate pledge done right.

All we can hope is that DEFRA learns from past mistakes and introduces air quality targets that focus on the ‘how’ rather than the ‘when . sustainabilitymag.com

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Supply chain

NO LO NG ER a law unto itself Digitalisation and tougher regulations are working in tandem to make supply chain more ESG-compliant than ever before WRITTEN BY: SEAN ASHCROFT

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lobal supply chains of old were notorious hotbeds of environmental, social and governance (ESG) transgressions. With thousands of vendors spread across countless countries, there was often very little visibility beyond the first tier of supply.

Deep down in the shadowy depths of tiers five, six and beyond, executives often had no idea what was happening – or not happening. But no longer.

Digital transformation, driven by Industry 4.0 technologies, is changing everything, as is the urgent need for organisations to walk the walk on ESG performance, not merely talk the talk. Businesses know now that if they fall short on ESG compliance then investors, stakeholders and – most damagingly of all – customers will want answers, and fast.

Transparency of the supply chain is driven by data and analytics, and ESG data has the potential to make or break potential contracts, to improve efficiency and to secure funding for new and existing operations. Sustainability is embedded in every project undertaken – or should be – and this also provides cost benefits, too.

SUPPLY CHAIN

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SUPPLY CHAIN

Sustainability starts with the right data Sustainable supply chains need aggregated data. This is Ground Zero. Supply chain ESG data needs to be accessible and meaningful, to allow for quick analysis and informed decision making. This is critical if businesses are to understand their supply chain and its global impacts.

“As the frequency and severity of disruptions increase, the era of neglecting supply chains, trusting suppliers, and optimising for cost is probably over,” says McKinsey Partner Knut Alicke, who has a leading role in digital supply chain and analytics for supply chain management.

“We’re entering a new age of supply chain management, where sourcing capabilities are king and digital innovation is the bridge to resilience,” Alicke explains.

“ Fashion is now following a wider global trend on sustainability and accountability” LAURA GIBSON

HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY, CORE

But it is not just data and technology that’s driving sea-change ESG improvements in the supply chain. A raft of legislation and regulations in the US and Europe is also having an impact.

One sector with an historically bad reputation for ESG performance is fashion retail. This is due to the sector’s rapid growth, its e-commerce capabilities, and its use of resources and raw materials that are tied in with changing consumption patterns, as well as the globalisation of trade.

Far-reaching social issues in the fashion supply chain and its ecosystem have been highlighted for decades, yet with little in the way of meaningful change. Tragedies such as the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 - causing the deaths of more than 1,000 garment workers, predominantly women and children - have driven some positive change, but there remains a lack of industrywide governance and regulation. Yet, there are signs that this may now be changing. sustainabilitymag.com

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“ Increased transparency and accountability in the fashion industry has largely been voluntary and unregulated” LAURA GIBSON

HEAD OF SUSTAINABILITY, CORE

New York fashion ESG Act might be game changer In January 2022, the New York State Assembly unveiled the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act. If passed, this would make New York the first city to pass legislation holding the biggest fashion brands to account for their role in climate change.

Backed by a powerful coalition of nonprofits and renowned designer Stella McCartney, the law will apply to global apparel and footwear firms with more than US$100mn in revenue that conduct business in New York – which is pretty much every large multinational fashion brand.

Specifically, it would require such companies to map a minimum of 50% of their supply chain, starting with the farms where raw materials originated, through to factories and shipping.

“The new legislation will require sustainability claims to be verified and disclosed by fashion companies, or else the brand faces a fine,” says Laura Gibson, Head of Sustainability at supply chain management company Core. “It will affect every large multinational fashion business, from Prada to Armani, as well as fast-fashion giants such as Boohoo.

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Asked if she sees New York’s legislation making a lasting difference, Gibson says that, although the bill is “geographically limited”, if passed, it will be an “important milestone” for sustainability in the fashion industry and is likely to drive calls for stronger legislation in other regions.

She adds: “While there have been recent shifts towards increased transparency and accountability within the fashion industry, this has largely been voluntary and unregulated, so the Fashion Act could provide a blueprint of how to regulate these initiatives to drive change.”

Also driving change is the European Commission (EC), which has announced plans to make far-reaching changes to a key sustainability reporting directive. Under the old EC directive, around 11,000 EU companies with more than 500 employees were obliged to report on their sustainability and ESG practices.

BLOCKCHAIN TECH HELPING MAKE SUPPLY CHAINS GREENER

But under the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), as many as 50,000 EU companies will be obliged to disclose transactions across their value chains and, unlike the previous system, the data will have to be digitised.

Fashion is falling into line on sustainability On the increase in sustainability regulations, Gibson says: “Fashion is an industry known for its lack of regulation and limited supply chain transparency, but now it is following a wider global trend on sustainability and accountability.

“With the development of the CSRD, there are signs of a broader shift in the legislative landscape, implying that industry stakeholders will need to address sustainability issues sooner rather than later if they are behind the curve.”

Gibson points out that another problem for fashion retailers has been a lack of bestpractice frameworks and initiatives to use when developing their sustainability strategy.

As well as regulatory and legislative tools to enforce supply chain sustainability, Blockchain tech is also playing its part.

UK Blockchain startup iov42 was among those who helped shape the first phase of the EU's blockchain capability, and its tech is also helping to combat illegal logging.

Dominic von Trotha Taylor, who is CEO of iov42, says: “We help organisations by codifying their processes on our platform, whether that’s a timber supply chain or a bank’s mortgage applications.

“We then provide proof that their rules are being followed by everyone involved.

We were chosen by the European Commission to help design and develop the first phase of European blockchain capability improvements.

“We’re also working with Timber Chain, a new service to enable stakeholders across timber supply chains to improve efficiency, transparency and security.

The sustainability of international timber markets is too often corrupt and fragmented. Data will be stored and secured by our distributed-ledger tech in a way that makes it impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system.” sustainabilitymag.com

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