TOTAL CONTRIBUTION SESSION – RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS WEEK – 19 APRIL 2016 Amalagamated discussion group notes. Group facilitated by Unilever (Sabina Nealon) Group facilitated by PwC (Atul Patel) Group facilitated by United Utilities (Jonathan Dobson) Group facilitated by British Land (Charles Middleton) Barriers: Understanding impacts of different areas of the business Convincing the CFO and commercial teams Lack of data Proof of value add (particularly to global HQ’d orgs) Definitions and terminology Availability of resource Perception that this data may divert attention from financial reporting Need to be careful of over reporting JLL Benchmarking, comparability, consistency Sample sizes for primary research Grant Thornton: Senior Buy-in Not priority yet The Estate Business case Simplicity But also holistic – need to know impact on larger society for long term planning and thinking But business doesn’t seem to connect these things – need to make them understand that it is fundamental! London City airport: Working with BITC They do have buy-in from senior Very dependent on local communities that why they are really keen to start Barriers JD Language – Important to have top level on board. This area can be very and focusing can be hard. Kier – On the language piece, trying to agree on a common basis can be difficult. Some comparability of risk or opportunities are tricky. Trying to get people to agree there is comparability is difficult. I can measure the costs, time lost, value on life but do you really want to monetise health and safety? Tangible but not always welcomed. JD – Culture within a business can also be a barrier, when teams are only talking with their own functions. Skanska – Finance graduates were a great asset - able to approach it differently. We’re also good at only recording negative impacts. It’s hard to know exactly what to measure. JD – We tend to focus on being less bad. Skanska, What are the barriers Skanska – the key barrier is to find the information. More interest now than a few years ago, progressing now they have a strategy to look at Return on Investment. It is a long process, need to find the right methodology. Something that can be understood by the business. City founder corporation – skills shortage + other teams do not speak the same language. Hard to get the right people in the room. British Standard Institution – bring people together, experts in the field to try to develop standards and help others to develop theirs. Work with Business in the Community. Common terminology
Jones and other big standards? Barrier as some industries are driven by this framework. British Land – a lot of data were inaccessible – now as the years go, better at valuing. You need to start somewhere, with the first 12 indicators. Global aspect – difficult, risk of being siloed. Opportunities: Investment in the business, monetizing sustainability Investor engagement - ESG Connecting with other businesses and the public/customers Opportunities Crown Estate: Driving innovation, not just in the measurement part but throughout the business – when you understand your impacts and dependencies you can start thinking about new ways of business JLL Stakeho:lder engagement, also with authorities Heathrow: Financial and sustainability team working together PwC: agrees – getting different skill sets and mind-sets together – then also going beyond sustainability and financial, but the broader business needs to be engaged Crown Estate: Made a good point that even financial data is based on Opportunities Wyndham – Business is franchised – our very integral. The input from other teams can be invaluable. Opportunity to influence a wide network. Different companies have different values and principles, we can’t expect everyone to be on the same page. Opportunity to show transparency of attitude – do they want to do it or just tick the box. Kier Here to make – if we treat supply chain better we become more efficient and therefore make money. If we run our sites better, they don’t get closed down and this saves money. It is the right thing to do – but it needs to be linked to the business. Opportunities Not one size fits all – all organisation will have own best approach. Asking questions for values for some elements – get a better understanding of the business. British Land – still a lot of questions remaining. Natural Capital – hard to value, if you lose it you never get it back. How do you value that?
PWC Atul’s feedback from the group discussion: Opportunities: Innovation Raising awareness Investor side of things: start integrating those indicators – bring into discussion BITC role: Convening forums, starting the conversation Stretching organisations to take action Encouraging failure / sharing learning Engaging different business functions, including finance professionals Role of BITC BITC’s role: Forums, workshops Focus on some metrics in small groups Incorporating into CR Index Sharing methodology – simplified version summarising the key points of all methods Grant Thornton: Sharing basic or minimum standard methodology – help organisations to start somewhere Crown Estate: seemed quite happy to share their methodology; maybe they could put Total Contribution approach into a table and share this – maybe BITC can do a clinic type thing/ workshops UK Power Network: Developing CR Index – incorporate it in there Getting more people to talk about it. One thing might be right for one and not for the other. BSI – keen to collaborate with people, organise workshops. Skanska – Useful to see what other people are doing, knowledge-sharing, see different perspectives. Workshop is a great idea. Charles – everybody doing their own thing. Need to share. People should not be afraid to fail. Share frameworks. BSI – plugging into the standards. Might not end up for a BS. Actually BS might help prevent a regulation. Idea is to develop volunteering principles; what people want to work at.
3BL_media: Get things started Grant Thornton: Workshop on the basics – and on a few metrics that many sectors experience/ want to measure Crown Estate: The Crown Estate would be happy to be involved in that Heathrow: should bring both people (financial and sustainability) along CBI: Who are the leaders in Total Contribution? PwC: e.g. Crown Estate, but also a range of companies in specific areas They represent ISO, etc. Could be a national or an international standard. GSK – do you hear similar noises from Europe? BSI – more advanced in the UK. GSK – In comparison to the US, Europeans seem more advanced and more open to talk about it. Europeans are more progressive in terms of exploring. They could maybe take a products approach – only the best sellers. But need to talk to manufacturing, etc. Need to start where you have control – a product, or a brand, etc. The difficulty is that you need to make sure you have the right data. Senior stakeholders buy in is essential, especially a business that size. Charles – US are compliance driven.