How to move from ambition to execution on sustainability

In this episode of Think Ecosystem, our panel discuss how they are collaborating to solve complex problems for clients through innovation and steps to take now on sustainability and more.

Key takeaways:

Sustainability requires action, not just ambition. Businesses must move beyond making ambitious statements about sustainability to developing detailed and actionable plans. More than merely making pledges is needed; concrete steps towards sustainability goals are necessary.
Collaboration is critical. This could involve sharing resources, knowledge and best practices, transcending traditional competitive boundaries.
Data utilization and execution pose challenges. One major hurdle businesses face is utilizing vast amounts of data for meaningful application and transition from planning to execution.

For your convenience, a full text transcript of this podcast is also available.

Welcome to the EY Think Ecosystem podcast, a series exploring the intersection of technology collaboration and innovation. In each episode, we orchestrate insights, stories and perspectives from across the EY Partner Ecosystem, our client base and leadership team, to address the important issues and challenges of today.

Laura Atkinson

I am your host Laura Atkinson, EY Partner and UK Alliances Leader. In this episode, we'll discuss how businesses can move from ambition on sustainability to action and finally to execution.
Sustainability requires a shift in mindset and approach, moving away from just making pledges and ambitious statements towards developing detailed, actionable plans. It's not enough to talk the talk; we must walk the walk and take concrete steps towards achieving our sustainability goals.
One key aspect of this shift is the need for collaboration. Sustainability is a complex issue that requires the involvement and cooperation of different stakeholders. By working together, companies can share resources, knowledge and best practices to find innovative ways to reduce their environmental impact and improve their social responsibility. While clearly beneficial, collaboration can be challenging – especially when it comes to collaborating with competitors. Companies will need to move beyond traditional competitive boundaries to work together towards the common goal of a sustainable future.
Instead of thinking about the service, product or process, companies must ask themselves: what problem are we trying to solve? If we can't solve it alone, who can help? And how do we assemble these partners in the right mutually advantageous model to deliver a solution?
During this episode, our panel of industry leaders will discuss how they are collaborating, solving complex problems for clients through innovation, steps you can take right now on sustainability, and much more. But before I introduce them, please remember: Conversations during EY podcasts should NOT be relied upon as accounting, tax, legal, investment or other professional advice. Listeners must consult their own advisors.
I am very excited to introduce our guests today from EY and from two of our strategic alliances within the EY Ecosystem. Joining us from Munich is Adam Thompson, an IBM Consulting Partner and Global Sustainable Finance and ESG Leader. Over the last 16 years, he has worked in over 45 countries and seen first-hand the ESG challenges and opportunities facing organizations in these markets. Outside of IBM, Adam is also an EU Climate Pact Ambassador for Germany and a huge advocate of the TNFD Data Catalyst and Nature-Based Solutions more broadly.

Adam Thompson

Thank you for having me today, Laura; I'm super excited to be part of this topic.

Atkinson

Thanks, Adam. Joining us from London is Muzzy Jorgensen, Chief Sustainability Officer for Microsoft UK, leading sustainable outcomes for Microsoft's customers, partners and for Microsoft internally in the UK. In her role leading Microsoft's sustainability strategy, she believes that business can be a force for good and that the key to our collective success lies in supporting the full potential of others.

Musidora Jorgensen

Thank you, really excited to be here and on such an esteemed panel as well. So thank you, Laura, for having me along.

Atkinson

Thanks, Muzzy. And then finally joining us from London, Rob Doepel, EY UK Managing Partner for Sustainability. Rob focuses on bringing the best of EY's end-to-end offerings to our clients across all sectors. As a practitioner, Rob has more than 20 years of experience in delivering large-scale transformational change, both within the industry and as an advisor.

Rob Doepel

Thanks, Laura; what a topic and great to be here with everyone.

Atkinson

Welcome, everybody. To kick off, let's start with one of the big challenges all our clients are facing, which is around data and reporting. Adam, could you set in context for us the remit of data and reporting that our clients are having to grapple with both from a global and a UK perspective?

Thompson

Great question and also a great starting point for this topic. Data is really the linchpin and is critical throughout every discussion we have in sustainability, whether we're talking from the compliance lens all the way through to operationalization. I think it's just maybe prudent to say a couple of sentences on the level of granularity and spectrum of data we're talking about here because there's been a lot of acronym soup, which I'm sure we're going to unpick as we go through today's conversation. But if we look at the E, S and G in this context, so environmental, social and governance, everybody thinks that ESG is one metric potentially, or it's just one data set. It's not its three pillars, which are multi-dimensional. So if I click on the E, for example, for environmental, and you start to talk about climate as one of the dimensions, or nature, or water, or waste, et cetera, and as before we get to the S of social or G governance, then start to realize through the spectrum, this whole plethora of data that you now need to curate, not just for reporting, but to really understand insight and impact. And that's quite critical as one of the design principles, both at the enterprise level and the data strategy level. How do you get that right? And how do you, in an ecosystem manner which we'll elaborate on as we go through in an open ecosystem, to really emphasize that, ensure you have the data that's in your four walls, within your organization, but also with all of your partners and actors that you engage with today? And that is absolutely critical as a mindset when you start this sustainability journey.

Atkinson

For sure. Turning to you for a second, Rob, the CEOs, and the C-suites are being inundated with data requests about performance, and they're really busy reporting against frameworks. So how do they leverage all of that data we just talked about in a meaningful way and then start to move to execution?

Doepel

I'm a bit of a spod, right? I love listening to result presentations, speaking with analysts, or asking questions of CEOs and hearing CEOs and boards talk about their businesses. It's been amazing how many questions they're now getting about non-financial performance alongside financial performance. So really touching on those ESG measures that Adam was talking about. And you're absolutely right; they are inundated with data requests coming from their investors, coming from their other stakeholders, as well as the regulators. And as Adam says, there's a lot of data across those three pillars. And I think what's becoming super important, therefore, is for organizations to not just be thinking about responding to all those requests, but how to do they sort of get back on the front foot with the narrative around their performance from a sustainability perspective? What narrative do they want to tell their broad stakeholder group and then support that narrative with the sets of data they are collecting? It's important you don't get caught in the trap of being reactive to everything being asked of you. Proactiveness, again, will help offset some of those requests that come to you. And I think, as I said, hearing the questions that are coming from stakeholders, there's definitely driving that mindset of wanting to just spin it around a little bit and get much more proactive on the front foot with the messages and stories that organizations want to be telling about their performance.

Thompson

I completely agree with what Rob's just said about getting on the front foot. Actually, one of the surveys we run ourselves with around 3000 of the C-suite on an annual basis is to understand through data and the insights. But in the context of sustainability. What are the trends underlying at the macro level? And one of the key things on the data wasn't just about the reporting; of course, that's extremely important. And absolutely, the analysts are going to be paying attention to that from a performance viewpoint. But one of the stats we got this year, a couple of months ago, was 71% of the CEOs see this new ESG data, which they need to get more involved in as the new value drivers. So where a decade ago, we could have been talking about the big data, internet of things, we've now progressed from just the blank gold to really the green gold in terms of impact. It's not just about we have a metric; of course, we spoke ESG. And we can talk about the triple bottom line, all the jargon terminology that goes alongside that. But it's going to be the new value streams going forwards. And that's also quite an interesting concept in terms of how you set yourselves up from the foundation, but more to the action part. Where do you want to drive the business as a sustainable enterprise? And I'm curious to see how you're doing in the UK for yourself.

Jorgensen

Yes, it's an incredibly complex global systemic challenge. And you've both pointed out really well that, certainly, this is something when organizations are facing into it that they're struggling with because of the complexity of it. So, at Microsoft, we've made bold commitments around the things that we want to do but have to steep that in looking at what we want to do around our science-based targets. But building that back around all the data that we can gather across the insights that we need into, as you say, into the action, Adam. But when, in my role, I get to be out with a lot of our clients and talk about how we can help to unify a lot of that data that sits within their organization across their whole estate. And at a very basic level, this is incredibly complex because that data will be sitting in lots of different places and lots of different formats. In some cases sitting on spreadsheets, it could be more dynamic, even harder than when you look at what you need to do from a scope three perspective, which we know is the most challenging, looking at the impact across the entire value chain of organizations. So actually trying to bring all of that back in into a format that allows to build out those actionable insights to then make better decisions on how to reduce the impact across, as you say, Adam, carbon waterways, what that means for the social piece as well, is the challenge. And so one of the things that we've done as Microsoft is build out the common data model to do that, because that's the big area in terms of this challenge, how to get to the baseline of it is understanding that everybody is talking the same language, it's measuring the same thing. And then collectively, we can all see that we're going in the right direction, but not to be underestimated. It's an incredibly difficult thing that most of our clients, certainly in the UK, are struggling with.

Atkinson

And Muzzy to build on that, then. We've touched a bit on the myriad of data frameworks and just how much reporting and how much data there is, you know, out there for clients to grapple with at the moment. Adam, you talked about that color green, the green value of some of those data points, but Muzzy in your, you know, from your recent client organizations, do you think the conversation is moving on to the topic of decarbonization? Or are people still talking about the data, the frameworks, you know, how to get this data in the first place?

Jorgensen

It's a bit of both. And look, regulation has its own place. And you know, not underestimating that there has to drive a lot of this change that we need to see. But it's not the only thing. But certainly, from a European perspective, CSRD is quickly coming down the track. So that's forcing a lot of these conversations, and also on the how to decarbonize piece, that is still being embedded into lots of our clients' plans. Interestingly, we did a review of a report a year ago, which shows that two-thirds of UK businesses don't yet have that environmental sustainability strategy embedded into their overall business plan. So there are quite a few who are still grappling with how to do this. And that's not for lack of wanting to get going and waiting for the regulation to come. That's because, as we've said, this is an incredibly complex thing. There are challenges ahead, as well as we can see in Microsoft as well; there is a looming sustainability skills gap in the market when it comes to people with those skills to be able to help work through all of that complexity as well. Regulation and the frameworks will absolutely have a place to help drive it. But it's also hand in hand with embedding those sustainable practices into organizations, growth plans, business models, and the future in terms of what they want to be seen and known for in terms of their overall impact. It's really important.

Atkinson

I want to pick on something you just said there actually; ask Rob and Adam for their opinion on this. If two-thirds of businesses do not have a good sustainability plan, what do you think it is that's holding them back from getting there?

Doepel

Well, part of this is the word robust. So you know, like Muzzy will back up, we'll do a bit of a stat-off Muzzy. I'll give you EY stats on top of your stats. But we did some more research, right? But we spent a lot of time on transition planning and using the Transition Planning Task Force. So put together, this is TPT, another acronym for you. But the TPT has put together guidance around transition planning, and we're going to make that mandatory in the UK. So, organizations are going to have to publish their transition plans. And against that guidance, if you look at what's currently published, what's currently out there for the FTSE 100, only about 5% of the FTSE 100 have got a plan that stands up to that new framework. And part of that is understandable because there the framework's only still actually in draft. It still needs to be fully in place. But it's also pretty comprehensive. And we talk about robust plans to make a robust plan is actually quite complex. It's not easy. And actually, some of the planning and what's coming out of TPT is you can't just look at decarbonization either; we have to look at things like biodiversity, you have to look at the quality measures, and I think transition planning actually when people think about sustainability, quite rightly, we've had a big focus perhaps on carbon, but the thing increasingly, stakeholders are expecting organizations to talk about the entire the E, the S and the G. And really when you step back and think about the transition you as an organization have to make, it really is quite complex. So it's one thing to stand up and give really bold ambition and great pledges. But as we're finding, when you unpick those and try to think about the plan and the action you're going to have to take, there's a load of choices that then get thrown up, and loaded trade-offs have to be made, and particularly in the environment we find ourselves in at the moment, we're not in a great economic environment. We've got inflation, we've got interest rates. We've got a skills shortage, as Muzzy was saying; even getting the logic of the plan right is difficult, let alone then going and executing against that plan. At the moment, most of the work I'm doing is helping advise clients on their planning. And it is an onion, the more you get into it, the more you uncover. And that's a long answer, Laura, to why we're not seeing robust plans. I think people are making efforts, I think we've made huge strides if we go back even three years to where we were, but it's not something which you can grab a team and say, can you go off and get our planning, right, you have actually to get everyone in the business, everyone in the organization involved in that plan, even the project of getting the plan done is a big effort. As I said, there are other distractions that you need to take into account while you're doing that.

Atkinson

The sheer complexity of the landscape. And the newness of the landscape, this is a terrain which people have got to travel for the first time, right? It's not like building a business plan that you've built, you know, year after year after year; this is all very new. And in fact, I was talking to some clients just recently about how complex they were finding things actually just as a consumer, for myself, I think all the different green initiatives and sustainability and what we should be doing around gas versus electric versus solar versus renewables, etc., is complicated for anyone to understand. What are your reflections on that, Adam? Just again thinking about the planning. And then, we'll spend some time talking about the action and the execution.

Thompson

On the planning side, as a reflection across the board, what we've noticed with enterprises or clients that we're speaking with, is that for a lot of them, this is an evolution of their current DNA. So you have had in the past a particular part of the organization responsible for the reporting, a particular part of the organization or function responsible for procurement, and so on and so forth; this cuts across the board. So if the organization and even the role of the CSO, I'm pleased we have Muzzy with us on the call today. But even for certain clients, they're still finding who has that role or who has that prerogative. So you have a Target Operating Model viewpoint. Is it really just reporting? Is it really embedding this as a standalone function? Or is this really across the DNA of the entire organization? I'm really coming to Rob's point about making the choices. We can speak about design principles, about ESG data, the foundations, how you can map it to the whole tranche of different regulations that are out there. And I won't go into any stats here. But there's a lot. In principle, it's also a reflection point; yes, you need to keep the lights on as any enterprise organization needs to be obviously focused. But on the other side, it's how do you actually do that step change, that mindset change. This isn't about, hey, we have an ERP system. Let's plug in a new module; this is really a fundamental cultural shift, and actually, it is going to be something that's going to be the new foundation of that organization going forwards. And there you need, obviously, sponsorship, but you also need to have everybody on this change journey. Change hasn't been mentioned yet. But not just in the walls but outside the walls of your ecosystem, who you're going to be involved in, who you're going to work with. And who's your sparring partner or coach because there are absolutely huge gaps? So if we talk about nature, well, SBTN is fantastic. They launched some of the methods of science-based target networks; sorry for the acronym a couple of weeks ago, but we're not going to get there until 2025 once consultations are finished. So some of these things are also in flux. And then, you also have to make a judgment call as to how far you go in the capability viewpoint. Or how far do you embed that with that mindset that there's still going to be these incremental value steps from now until certainly 2030 or 2050, obviously, if we talk net zero? The other part is really the education piece. Because I've come across certain clientele, which are really extremely passionate, really get it, and I've come across others that are really step one, or even step zero in terms of how to get them on board. It's not just from a maturity viewpoint, but actually the full understanding holistically, so decarbonization is super important. Nobody would disagree with that. But to Rob's notion as well, they're all intrinsically linked. So you can't go on a one size fits all approach. That's also something to reflect on, again, which stakeholders have that prerogative, and how do they then collectively manage that?

Atkinson

I think that's a really great point Adam, and actually leads us nicely into thinking about those stakeholders and their level of accountability, and then how do they drive action from the plan that they have. Accepting that a small number of companies do have a robust plan and accepting the challenges around getting a plan and the education required to be able to create it and deliver it nonetheless, our clients do need to take action. We can't all sit in the planning phase indefinitely. So Muzzy, maybe if I come to you first, if I may, what challenges are you seeing, from your perspective with clients saying, you know, these are the obstacles we have to overcome, or this is how we're actually going to approach turning this plan into action within the business?

Jorgensen

We've spoken about the data challenge. And I think, you know, without wishing to underline that, that is, that is a big one that most of our clients are facing, and being able to really see what's happening and have those, as I say, those insights to be able to make those decisions should not be underestimated, in terms of that being a big blocker. The skills gap, I think, again, is another area for organizations who, you know, on a very basic level, are not only thinking about the green, and the blue, you know, traditional skills that we know about, but yeah, as leaders, how we are in organizations setting up for ensuring everybody's got those circular thinking, systems thinking, the influencing skills, the storytelling skills, you know, how to translate the sustainability piece into what that means for the finance team, what that means for the team running procurement, what that means for employee engagement, I think is really important. And hence why the sort of focus that, as Rob said, this is not just a sort of side of the desk, we've got a problem, we need to quickly work out what we're going to do, this is how to change in many cases, the culture of an organization to be thinking about sustainable growth, to be thinking about empowering everybody within the organization to be thinking about how to make sustainability part of everyone's role. And so that is part of the fabric, and the purpose of the organization is to help drive the action that we all need to see in the world.

Atkinson

Cultural change, you're right; making it everybody's responsibility is really important. And, in one of my previous roles, we used to have this little acronym called EPIC, which stands for every person influences culture. And if you get that sustainability, a sense of purpose into the DNA of an organization, then that helps move things along. Rob, from your high conversation, any builds on what Muzzy was talking about there, the challenge with data, the challenge with the skills gap, any of the things that you're seeing when you're talking to our clients about this.

Doepel

Well, I often get asked who's doing this well. And to Muzzy's point, I think the organizations that are doing it well have moved beyond thinking about this, as I have a sustainability strategy, I think they're more thinking about I have a strategy have a business strategy. And that business strategy is for a sustainable business. In some ways, you look at the maturity curve of those organizations; as I said, you're always going to find the annual report. And it's all there. It doesn't mean our annual reports are getting a little bit cumbersome, by the way, because there's a lot of information going into the first half of annual reports. But I prefer, actually, just see it there than to see it in standalone documents or off to the side. And then we get to execution. It's just the typical execution challenge. Have we got, you know, accountability and responsibility clearly articulated, clearly defined? Have we got the resources available? And I'm talking about all resources here. So both the financial clout, are you getting the investment you need to actually execute against the plans? So there's both the physical and the human capital. And I think those that are doing it well are doing that in a fully integrated way, and can just talk about it and show action and show progress as an evolution of their business of how they're moving their business forwards. And I'm seeing that, typically, in industries that are better at long-term planning. And you can imagine what industries I'm talking about. So that sort of large industrial extraction, energy industries, where they're used to planning on a long-term basis, but frankly, also, let's not forget, actually have the most to do. So they are the ones that have had to sort of move to action and execution perhaps more than other parts of the economy,

Atkinson

For sure. So I'd like to talk for a few minutes about a subject which is very close to my heart, which is the role of the ecosystem in terms of helping clients transform their business. So Adam, what are some of the tangible ways in which the ecosystem approach helps clients wrestle with these challenges?

Thompson

That's a fantastic question to ask. But also, again, not to keep using the word reflection, but it is a fantastic reflection point. Because in the past, where we've seen a competitive advantage and how you have your certain partner ecosystem. Here, there aren't the silver bullets that everybody would wish for. So it does need new ways of thinking and ecosystem. So in this case the World Business Council is one that's also near and dear to my heart. Where coming back to Muzzy's point about scope three being a challenge. They're creating platforms and hubs where there's a carbon data exchange for scope three, and last time I checked, around 70-80 Blue Chip organizations have subscribed to that. Now, if you can percolate that into, let's say, mini-ecosystems that are all combined, and we all work together here on today's podcast, that's the way to tackle or, let's say, slice the problem accordingly. Because it will be incremental, we are starting its climate first, but non-climate only. So nature will need to have a similar approach by bringing that collective mindset together in such a forum. And obviously, there are equivalents out there as well with WEF etc. But that allows a dialogue to basically get the problem statements on the table, so it's great that we have the various COPs, and it's great that we've signed the various UN treaties, and very proud to be there, nevertheless now comes from the theory to the reality. The other thing, it's also nice to speak with a counterpart that has the same problems and challenges, not just from a relief sense, but actually to see how you can triangulate or combine to get to a solution because, right now, there's been a very lots of linear thinking in certainly in the nature space. And with nature, if you go from the ground, so we're talking about land, ocean, freshwater atmosphere that you talked about biomes, which is like a 10x underneath. And so we talk about land, you've got forestry, you got tropical forests, woodlands, etc. It's huge, monumental. So the only way we can do this is by bringing everybody together. The other part as well, if we talk ecosystems, and let's not forget when we speak about decarbonization, the greenhouse gas protocol, how did that actually start? It was an ecosystem of NGOs and a lot of private industry, and we're talking two decades ago. So there are proof points. But the key thing there is that you got to come very openly to the ecosystem; this is not about trying to get some secret sauce; this is about collectively co-innovating, collaborating, and actually making the real-world changes. Because just to sort of self-reflect here at the macro level, if you look at the IPCC, so the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, and obviously, what's happening in terms of actual temperatures, right, now, we haven't got time to sit on our hands and worry about, let's say, who solution's better than ever, you have to be very agnostic at times and really come as to what's the right solution for the planet or for, let's say, the greater good right now than just looking as to the competitive advantage, because by definition, as we said earlier, with the green gold, or the green value that can be derived from this, this is what the ecosystem brings, there's a network effect. And there's a multiplier factor as well, economically speaking. So it's a win-win for everybody to come with this attitude and mindset.

Atkinson

I couldn't agree more. And it's a case of the high tide raises all ships, right, and we were all in the same sea on this one. And therefore, actually, organizations that might have previously viewed their own data slash reporting solutions as quite competitive with one another; it's going to take a mindset shift from the ecosystem and from people working to convene the ecosystem to unlock value, to create value for clients, and to kind of drive that compete, collaborate, coexist mentality, all around that area of really strong collaboration, and Muzzy, you know, Microsoft, one of the largest software companies in the world, you know, I'm sure you see that need to collaborate with, you know, your huge ecosystem all the time, right?

Jorgensen

I like to look at it because everybody's got a different piece of the jigsaw to bring to solve for the full picture. And, yes, in many cases, that means, everybody comes around the table, but the opportunity that presents actually is incredibly exciting in terms of the things that we can all do to solve problems. As we said already, a really great example of that, we're doing that with one of the industries in the UK, the UK water industry, under huge amounts of pressure, as we know, particularly in recent weeks, in terms of the challenges that they face. But with everybody trying to solve those same challenges that come up, wouldn't it be better to look at what are the top three, bring everybody together around the table, look at how something like technology and how Microsoft in terms of things that we're doing can accelerate for those solutions, and so collectively all go faster to solve for them, as opposed to everybody sitting in their own areas, trying to work it all out themselves. So there is a huge opportunity to look at that and bring the best of innovation, the diversity of thought, all parts of this wonderful opportunity; we have to solve many of these very complex problems.

Atkinson

Absolutely. And the more demanding our clients can be of their ecosystem to get them to work together better, the more we'll achieve that goal. So, Rob, I want to come to you to talk about as clients start to execute, when we're encouraging our clients into action, you know, a really simple question. Should people start big, or should they start small?

Doepel

Probably a predictable answer, but start small and grow big. But the important thing to do is start, just pick up a conversation around ecosystems and partnering. That's probably one of the easiest places to start getting involved in some of these collaborations and things like that [inaudible] pact, Mission Possible partnerships, manufacturing 2030. There are loads of groups now that are forming to help companies take that first step, and share learnings, share ideas. Interestingly I've had more conversations about antitrust law in the last quarter than I've had in my career, and that's particularly surprising because I've never really been in that spot before. But I look at that in two ways. Actually, that means that we're seeing more and more collaboration because it's now becoming something that people are concerned about. So we're now hopefully clamoring about things that matter. The second thing I'd say is, you know, I think there are parallels with other industries; I go back to my time in renewables, where we had the birth of that industry when we had to collaborate, and we had to work cross-sector, cross-firm to get that new business moving in the UK. And there were real conservative anti-trust there as well. But we found ways around it because actual lawmakers are looking for innovation. They want in many ways in this space; they want organizations to move faster, thus, all the regulation that we've got coming at us. So I think there are ways around and I think we'll see Adam and myself from our organizations we've got a massive role to play, as being sometimes in the center of these ecosystems, helping organizations on that integration piece, and hopefully helping not just the large organizations, but also helping those perhaps so small medium enterprises who need to take the first step, haven't perhaps got all the resources, perhaps that some of the large multinationals have at their disposal. Those forums, those ecosystems, can be a great place to take that first step.

Atkinson

To build on that, then Rob, accepting that you know, there may be people listening to this podcast who think this is all super fascinating. I know I've got to do something. I've got the bones of a plan in the business. Adam, what advice would you give to people listening to this podcast to think, actually, if you had to take two or three practical steps around this tomorrow, what would they be?

Thompson

That's a great question. The first one is to contextualize where they are already on their own sustainability journey. So have they even started, to Rob's point, I mean, that's the most important, get started? Understand, really, your baseline. So whether you have all the data or not, it doesn't matter, but at least start to build out that heat map with a rack reporting as to what coverage you have. And what are the actual objectives or commitments you actually are striving to achieve? Because we have clients that will say they want to be nature neutral by 2030, sadly, they are still very embryonic in their thinking about how to get to that timeline. The other part is and just come back to the context, do look at what the future holds. So to Rob's point earlier about resiliency and keep the lights on. And obviously, the daily day-to-day business right now, it's very clear, given all the macro trends, what is installed for us at a global level in the world for all of us here on this call, and who's out there listening. And I have clients let's say, for oil and gas, where we really are not really starting small; they have to start big for the simple reason that they need so much transformation. And they will, I'm very proud to say we're working on nature-based solutions really transforming the business like a whole one or 360 as to where they started and where they're going to get to. On the other side, there's maybe I can finish with this one actually; great co-innovation that we did with you and EY around the [inaudible] travel approval tool where we did the whole gamification, and we basically reduced the timeframes. So the three points then so one, get started, two understand where you are in your baseline and three, really have a bit of a visionary viewpoint, how you're going to see that percolate as your enterprise, or what's the new DNA or culture, your enterprise needs to get to a sustainable enterprise by definition.

Atkinson

Excellent. Thank you so much. And that brings us very nicely on, in fact, to our sort of final topic, and you touched on it there, Adam, which I'm sure our audience will be very interested to hear what IBM, Microsoft, and EY are doing themselves to make the transition. So Muzzy, if I could turn to you, perhaps you'd be kind enough to outline what initiatives Microsoft is taking here in the UK or globally?

Jorgensen

Yes. So at a global level, we have set some very ambitious commitments really stemming from four key areas. So the first is around carbon. And we've said that we want to be carbon negative by 2030. So that's taking out more carbon from the environment than we emit. We have been carbon neutral for just over 10 years. The step on from that around carbon is that we've said that we want to take out all the carbon that we've ever emitted since we were founded in 1975. And that's really steeped in our belief that those organizations that can do more should do more. We believe that we're one of those. We've also got commitments around water, so we want to be water positive by 2030. We want to be zero waste by 2030. And then the fourth one is really a big focus on how we can have an impact positive impact on nature and biodiversity, and we all know that the rising climate has a detrimental impact across the world and what that means for nature and biodiversity. So we've built something called the planetary computer, which is an open-sourced data platform, again, back to our point that we made earlier on the importance of data, but having the insights, sharing those insights around how to go to better protect nature and biodiversity across the world. So there are our four key commitments, and everything is focused on ensuring that we hit those and go as fast as possible.

Atkinson

Perfect. Thank you. And Adam, what about IBM?

Thompson

IBM is a centurion organization. We did our first environmental memorandum back in 1971. And since then, we haven't stopped. So coming to the current day, so a little plug, so ibm.org is our impact report; we just published that back in April this year; we have also committed to at least stay on the emissions theme for a second, where we want to be 65% reduction of our emissions by 2025, we've really achieved 62% of that, so no doubt, we'll be even more ambitious in the coming year, on the more social side, because I don't want to fall into being a statto now. But one of the big things we've mentioned today about the education piece. So we have a commitment around upskilling 30 million people globally, around all of the sustainability as well as PTAC, etc. And we're already at the 7 million figure. And so by 2030, we're on a good track. But that's a key one also to plug. So if anybody is interested in anything we spoke about today, please check it out or reach out. And we're happy to share more details. And the final part is just our ongoing commitment to everything that we've already done. In these open ecosystems, and yes, you might not see our logo in terms of technology partner, I'm not here to plug that today. But it's more about our commitment to innovation in the sustainability domain in general. So anything you've heard today, we do it for ourselves, but we're there to keep it in an open ecosystem. And that's our mentality. So I'll stop there and then pass the baton to Rob then to bring us home with EY.

Doepel

We're building a better working world, which is a mission and purpose that's very close to all of our sort of 360,000 people we now have globally. We set a pretty bold ambition a couple of years ago to be carbon negative by 2021 and reach net zero by 2025. From an organization such as ours, a large professional services organization, a lot of our scope one and two emissions are travel related. So in some ways, we had a fair wind with global events, and I'm pleased to say we exceeded our targets around both being carbon negative, and we've reduced our overall emissions by well in line with our targets to hit net zero and 2025. So we've had a huge program to reduce our business travel emissions, with a lot of work on our footprint, our real estate footprint around electricity usage, and pleased to say we're now procuring 100% renewable energy in the UK and then working really with our supply chain as well. And back to the conversation we had, Laura, around how people start and what steps you take, we've been working really hard with our supply chain to help them through their journey to ensure that they are also in line with our net zero targets for FY25. We're just in the process now of resetting that ambition as well. And we want to go beyond and further than we've done previously. On the one other plug on people and talent, we spoke a bit about green skills. We are a big employer globally, and we've invested a huge amount around educating our people on sustainability; we've actually got an EY Master's in Sustainability, which anyone in our firm can acquire. It's free for them; we fund that program. And that's with the Hult University. So we're giving a lot of our people opportunities, and one of the things we've done with that platform is now made available to our clients as well. So all that learning that we have, which builds all the way through, is something that our clients can access as well. And that's a super exciting development for us.

Atkinson

And amazing to be able to share that knowledge and that learning and, and the inspiration right for people to learn more about the topic. Rob, Muzzy, Adam, thank you so much, I think we've just had some really brilliant conversation. We've talked about the challenges our clients face, we've talked about some of the data and reporting issues, where to start, how to start, the role the ecosystem could play and absolutely should play. It's been fascinating to touch on the cultural aspects of this and how to get that, you know, that kind of perspective around sustainability into the cultural DNA of organizations; important and great to hear what everybody is doing themselves. So, thank you all so much for your contributions today.
Before we go, I need to read a quick note from the attorneys: All third parties set out in this podcast are not necessarily the views of the global EY organization nor its member firms. Moreover, they should be seen in the context of the time in which they will make serve a final. Big thank you to all our contributors today. I'm Laura Atkinson. I hope you have enjoyed the show. And that you'll join us again soon for the next edition of the EY Think Ecosystem podcast.

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Laura J. Atkinson

EY UK&I Alliance & Ecosystem Leader; Partner, Market & Business Development, Ernst & Young LLP

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Episode 8

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EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.

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How to move from ambition to execution on sustainability

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Laura J. Atkinson

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