The UN Global Compact Sustainable Development Goals - our roadmap for sustainability and a path for industry
From carbon emissions and circular economy to social value.
Back in 2020 we compiled our first full sustainability report, with the results forming the basis of our verified Science Based Targets and our commitment to the United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It plotted the course for our actions to date and set us on a path to achieving Net Zero before 2050.
What’s perhaps been layered on top since that first report is how much industry as a whole has grown since then. It was initially centred on SDG 13: Climate Action, but it’s more than that now, recognising the value of the wider ESG actions. It’s now included in almost all tenders and preferred supplier requirements, with data on embodied carbon emissions, operational emissions across the supply chain, and reporting on social impact and community action all requested.
So how did we approach this and what can industry learn to help guide their own sustainability journey?
First, the framework
It can initially feel like an unnecessary time-consuming exercise when you’d prefer to be making big-ticket changes, but ensuring that the Governance framework reflected both best practice and who we were as a business today was one of the best steps we took. It gave us an opportunity to align what we do with how we present ourselves on paper and in policies to stakeholders, and look objectively at what type of business we wanted to be. In many cases we were already ‘walking the walk’ but the ‘talking the talk’ bit hadn’t fully caught up.
In many ways it’s about establishing a baseline – until you do that and understand where you are at that point in time, you can’t plot a course to improve because you can’t quantify it. You certainly can’t effectively innovate – something that SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) emphasises.
Interestingly, although over 8,000 companies are officially registered on the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) site, initial testing reveals that only 15%-20% of companies who have set 1.5-degree targets have the necessary governance structures in place to achieve their goals.
An easy(ish) win – Renewable energy
Now, there’s a cost to this, whether its via green energy tariffs or an investment in your own energy infrastructure with solar panels and battery storage solutions, but it can help transform Scope 2 emissions. It’s estimated that the industrial sector emits 25% of direct CO2 emissions, but that decarbonising technologies around electrification and green energy could reduce those emissions by between 40-100% in energy intensive processes.
There’s no need to wax lyrical about the benefits of green energy compared to traditional fossil fuels, or to talk about the shift in the global energy landscape – it’s happening all around us.
For us, delivering on UN Global Compact SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) meant we chose to invest in solar panels sited on the rooftop of our operations sites, calculated to generate the equivalent of our annual electricity consumption. It powers our sites, the plant, equipment and batteries, and our electric vans too. Any excess is fed into the grid. But it also gives us energy security at a time of price increases and international instability – so commercially sensible as well as environmentally friendly.
Taking Control of Logistics
The European Environment Agency predicts that unless action is taken, logistics and supply chain management will account for up to 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
Until the end of 2021, our logistics was handled by third-party firms – that meant all the associated carbon emissions fell into Scope 3… but that also meant we had no control over choice of fuels or routes. Choosing to invest in an owned fleet of HGVs and EVs with employee drivers brought benefits to the delivery service we provide our customers, but it brought the emissions into our Scope 1.
Fast-forward to now and with over 50 HGVs and drivers, and without action it would have meant a sizable rise in our operational emissions – amplified further by the fact our business has grown significantly since the Science Based target baseline was set (SDG 8: Decent work and Economic Growth!). The main change was to switch to sustainable HVO fuels (hydrotreated vegetable oil) which offers a c.90% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to diesel, locating a 100,000 litre fuel tank onsite. It’s a move that aligns with wider EU initiatives to boost biofuel use, including ReFuelEU Aviation – a new law striving for 70% sustainable fuel in European airlines by 2050. Yes, it’s often priced at a premium to diesel, but we took the decision to not to pass these costs onto customers; it’s our decision to be conscious of our carbon footprint – its all just part of the service for our customers.
As is often the case, achieving emissions reductions in one area can spur you onto do even more, so as the fleet grew it meant more journeys to third-party suppliers for maintenance and mandatory assessments. It meant trucks were off the road for longer than we’d like in some cases as scheduling sometimes didn’t line up. Again, commercial decisions and environmental considerations joined together, and we built a maintenance garage so we could do that work ourselves. Today, the facility is IRTE accredited, equipped to do all that’s needed to keep trucks safely on the road – from MOTs to brake pad and tyre changes and more. It keeps our fleet running safely and efficiently, but it also cuts out a lot of small unnecessary journeys – miles and emissions that over the course of the year add up.
Incremental gains for Scope 1
So we’re running on solar power, and the fleet emissions are now in our control and in the process of being mitigated. What next? As part of the process for seeking and achieving ISO 50001 Energy Management, we looked closely at our operations to see where we could make energy savings. It aligns to SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.
Energy monitoring devices were deployed to identify hotspots – was there inefficient equipment in operation that would be better served being upgraded and replaced? Plant equipment left running but idle during the day that could be powered up/down without causing disruption or delay? Were batteries left on charge beyond the time needed to get back to 100%? In many cases it was about changing habits – turning off lights if the room is empty and shutting down computers rather than leaving in standby mode. Yes, improved energy efficient lighting was deployed, but this was all about incremental gains and the idea that every little helps… and it does.
Employee engagement
Changing habits to make those incremental gains means bringing every one of our employees on the same sustainability journey with us. We wanted our colleagues to feel part of the process and have buy-in to what we were doing.
The UNGC Sustainable Development Goals have been key to doing this. Employee engagement activities map the issues that our colleagues feel are most pressing and important to them – not necessarily in work, but to their families and life in general. In 2023, the top three shared priorities ranked as: Raising people out of poverty (SDG 1), Good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), and Tackling climate change (SDG 13). Mapping these in turn onto our actions on site, the health and wellbeing packages we provide, and our actions in the communities we work within helps highlight these benefits – but it also let’s us steer the ship towards those areas our colleagues feel need further attention, shaping our actions for the year ahead.
Speak to anyone in the team – in any department or role – and they’ll be able to tell you about the sustainability initiatives and health & wellbeing work we do, and they’ll give a personal slant on why it’s important for them and their family. Without the engagement of our employees we wouldn’t be making the strides we are.
Working with the Supply Chain
To achieve the goal of being Net Zero means that you AND your supply chain have to fully decarbonise. Our actions alone aren’t enough, so we have worked hard to engage with our suppliers and partners so that they too start their sustainability journey. From providing the granular reporting we need to be able to calculate our full emissions, to switching to renewable energy sources and changing packaging to be more eco-friendly.
We can do this because of the strength and long-term nature of the relationships we have with our key suppliers. As with most businesses, sustainability choices need to also be interwoven with commercial decisions and our collaboration and communication provides that. We’ve made a commitment to sustainable operations and the ethical and environmental principles a precursor for working with us – it’s a journey we’re more than happy to share with our suppliers.
Community action & social value
Social value seemed to become one of the industry buzzwords last year – but how can it be quantified? Access to quality education and training is UN GC SDG 4 – our certified CPD training benefits staff and customers alike, and we support employees in seeking further education, be it apprenticeships or higher degrees. We also sponsor engineering students through the IET Futures Fund – the Institute of Engineering and Technology’s programme to support the engineers of tomorrow in their higher education studies – who knows, one of our sponsored students may work for us in the future… or may change the world with a revolutionary discovery!
Tackling SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), and SDG 5 & 10 (Gender Equality / Reduced Inequalities) has meant us engaging in community initiatives. From inclusive sports groups and sensory rooms, to funding care packages for those displaced by homelessness or domestic violence, for us the focus has often been on helping families and allowing children to thrive regardless of their wider family circumstances.
There’s always more that can be done, and there’s always deserving projects to support and collaborate with. Other companies may take a different approach and prioritise other angles – that’s ok! Social value is about actions that give more than it brings back: if we all took steps to embrace this it would make a huge difference.
Full circle
Part of responsible consumption and production (SDG 12) is to consider what happens at the end of product life, and with the waste generated from business activities. With materials such as copper, aluminium, steel, wood, plastics and cardboard all requiring disposal, we built a cable recycling plant onsite. From crushers and bailers to handle the wood, plastic and cardboard waste, to state-of-the-art equipment that strips or chips cables, separating each material layer, it means we are now zero landfill waste operations, processing over 99% of any electrical cable. We processed over 1000 tonnes of cable waste last year, sending the metals onto local foundries and plastic sheathing and insulation materials onto nearby facilities for reuse.
It's not just about our own operational waste – it’s a benefit to customers too, with leftover cable from installations no longer having to be securely stored onsite and instead collected by our team (often as a backhaul from a further delivery) and processed back into the circular economy. It means compliance with regulations on electrical waste disposal, and one less thing to have to think about for the project.
The future – for us and for industry
Increasing regulation and legislation puts sustainability in the centre of the frame. The upcoming CSR Directive is going to require businesses to really look below the surface of their sustainability actions and those of their supply chain. For those businesses already advanced in their ESG journey it will help push them on, highlighting to their customers their actions and the benefits of working with them. For others, it may be more onerous and time-consuming – but it’s about setting those industry benchmarks and slowly dragging everyone up to the same level of awareness about the importance of climate action and sustainability measures.
Our sustainability report to December 2023 (the current latest edition) highlights the significant progress we’ve made towards our sustainability goals - but we don’t just want to meet these targets; we want to exceed them, setting a benchmark for the wider cable industry. We want to engage with customers too, to feed into their own goals – part of the beauty of our ‘tailored service on a global scale’ is that we can adapt and work collaboratively with customers to meet their needs.
So what’s the takeaway from this? It’s that’s is a clear path to deliver more sustainable operations if you choose to take it; and that the United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Development Goals are the bellwether – the leading example for everyone to follow. How you interpret those goals for your business is down to you, but the underlying message is clear – it’s only by working together that we can build a greener, more sustainable future.
