Published: November 01 2011, 04:52 PM | 1 Comment(s)
by Sonny Masero

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Peter Walsh, who is Head of BPO Sustainability for Capgemini. Peter’s expertise in environmental and carbon management means that he is well placed to capitalize on new market opportunities. Working closely on the new Energy, Carbon & Sustainability BPO service is already showing that together Capgemini and CA Technologies is bringing a new valued offering to the market. Together CA Technologies and Capgemini are also sponsoring the Ethical Corporation’s 5th Annual Corporate Responsibility Reporting & Communications Summit in London on 15-16 November 2011. Ahead of the event Peter has offered to write a guest blog for CA Technologies.

Sustainability as a Strategic Business Function
By Peter Walsh, Head of BPO Sustainability, Capgemini

When I worked in the field of Geographic Information Systems, back when it was emerging as a discipline, I was trying with my colleagues to convince everyone that spatial data was really important and useful. I remember being struck by a statement that once people started ignoring us, then we would know we had made it. That indeed came to pass, as spatial data moved off the specialist, expensive and complicated software packages, and started appearing in car navigation systems and web pages. Suddenly everyone was using a GIS, even though most people didn’t know what a GIS was. We’d become invisible, and mainsteam.

I’m beginning to suspect sustainability data might be at the point of a similar migration. The last decade has seen enormous progress in the development of data standards, reporting guidelines, and technology tools all designed to support sustainability reporting. 235 companies provided a submission to the Carbon Disclosure Project in 2003, by 2010 that number had risen to 3050. In 2000, the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines were launched, today around 1500 companies reporting using the GRI guidelines. An entire discipline and industry has grown up around the need to measure and manage sustainability performance.
There is no sign of slow-down either, with the GRI releasing their next generation of guidelines and continuing to develop their sector supplements, the launch of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Scope 3 Accounting and Reporting Standard, the development of water footprinting standards etc.

All good news, however, the increasing importance of sustainability is placing pressure on traditional methods of managing environmental data. Companies are finding that systems and processes used to generate compliance reports as a technical function are wildly inadequate when it comes to managing and driving sustainability performance. The limits of MS Excel are being tested. As more and more Chief Sustainability Officer positions are created, so we are also seeing enterprise standards that have long been applied to other strategic functions in the business being adopted for sustainability management. This includes internal audit controls, program evaluations, and the positioning of sustainability within a broader corporate communications strategy.  In order to perform at this level, sustainability needs to lift its game, including the tools, processes and resources used for to sustainability management. 

Capgemini has recognized this evolution in the importance of sustainability data by extending its Business Process Outsourcing services using CA ecoSoftware to include carbon accounting and sustainability data. Now, sustainability management can benefit from the same approaches of clear repeatable processes, auditable data trails, global process consistency, flexible resourcing, and reliable, timely reporting that other functions such as finance, HR, and Procurement have been using for over a decade. Companies get great benefit from back-office support for invoice generation, payroll, etc, why not hand over the number crunching for sustainability too? By putting together all the needed capability into an integrated service, (business process, domain expertise and technology platform), this service provides a one stop shop to take care of reporting needs, and lets companies focus on their strategy.

So, it seems sustainability has joined the ranks as a strategic business function, with leading organizations addressing the risks and pursuing the opportunities. In these companies, watch out for increasing outsourcing of data management tasks, as they shed the data workload and focus instead on strategic matters. As the leaders reap the benefits of this approach, others will follow. Sustainability is evolving from being just a technical function or a niche selling point for green companies, to a mainstream business issue. It’s time to put the right tools in place.