Sustainability what is it, and is it just a fad?
It was a while later (when I began helping customers to answer questions in tenders) that I researched the issue fully and started to understand the extent of the intended change, plus the growing controversy it can cause. In many ways the concepts covered by UN “sustainability” goals, which were agreed by ALL nations could be summarised as “Lets respect ALL and see if we can ALL prosper together”. A noble and worthy intent. But unfortunately, some of these goals sail close to concepts sometimes thought of as “Political Correctness”. This culture is causing much angst and division at present, but still needs to be treated carefully if you don’t want to be inundated with hate mail and social media hounding.
So what’s this got to do with your SME based in the UK?
A storm in an environmentally friendly tea cup?
1. Things I can’t do anything about, such as the first three, No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well Being – (though having tried to access NHS services of late I wonder whether the UK government should really be claiming allegiance to this goal!)
2. Requirements which are already enshrined in UK legislation, like gender equality, good education, reduced inequalities etc, so we should already be complying with them.
For the goals that can be impacted by our compliance, many of us running companies in the UK will likely find that we are already meeting many of them and with a little thought we can meet the ones we aren’t. As a result, the cost to us providing positive responses to tenders around these needs could be significantly reduced as they’ve already been met.
Wheels within wheels and the need for a referee
A further problem comes in the cost of the reporting that government, and other major purchasing bodies are expecting. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think many have the slightest idea how much time and effort goes into responding to these requirements.
There are many organisations offering to complete the reporting for you, but this raises another issue. Until very recently, there have been no real agreements on the reporting required and no standardisation. Most of the organisations offering to “help” with your Sustainability reporting have simply had a reporting website generated. Their idea of help is then to sell you the opportunity to fill in pages and pages of questions and supply the endless evidence to support your answers.
But each site has been written by somebody different, asks different questions, and the organisations themselves have no oversight or accreditation for the service they are selling; they can ask what they want, there are few rules.
Nature abhors a Vacuum
Many of these Sustainability Reporting sites/Owners have managed to grow very close ties with major purchasing organisations, some links may even have financial agreements behind them:
i. You want to sell to company A,
ii. Company A says to do business you need to pay a subscription and complete Company B’s questions
iii. Company B then either pays a subscription to Company A, or could even be owned by them.
Which would explain why there are so many different websites/companies with similar but varying services. But for reliable and honest reporting, the person doing the reporting needs to be independent and competent, but at present this can’t be checked.
At long last, enter ISO 20400, an internationally agreed best practice guide for Sustainable Procurement. Originally written in 2017, this standard ought to result in a level playing field, and independent, honest and meaningful reporting. Let’s hope the UK government and all other UK based major procurement organisations are forced to accept and comply with the practices it enforces, and we all stop having to pay for these unregulated Sustainability Reporting websites hosted in unknown locations around the world.
Should you be interested in the background to Sustainability, and how we got to where we are, there’s a quick synopsis below.
The United Nations role in a divisive subject!
In 1987 a United Nations commission defined Sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” A very noble definition and aim.
In 2012 a UN conference agreed a set of Sustainable Development Goals, which were published in 2015. There are 17 of these goals, which is an odd number one way or another, and the UN made them part of their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the 2015 conference those present agreed the goals as intended to “mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind” see here for further details.
All 193 nations who form the UN were present and unanimously agreed to the goals. This included the USA, the Russian Federation, China, India, most of the known world, and even the tiny inconsequential UK.
Those 193 countries are now charged with implementing, monitoring and reporting performance against these goals. Which is really where the problem starts. As UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson is reputed to have said, “a week in politics is a long time” and the last ten years have been particularly tumultuous. As a result, most of the world leaders who agreed to these very worthy and noble aims are now long gone.
Who knows if they will continue to be supported, or where the required financial investment will come from?
If you’d like to know more why not drop us a line and if we can help your business to lower its environmental impact we will.
Contact us HERE
No AI was used to write this post, so the spelling and grammatical errors are all mine, and the result of a UK, state provided, education 😊, for which I remain, most thankful.