The story

In 2023, Simply Sustainable supported Amtico to develop its first ESG and sustainability report. This built upon our existing relationship, having previously worked together in 2019-20 to tailor a sustainability strategy that suited the unique luxury flooring manufacturer. Amtico’s first ESG and sustainability report, therefore, communicated the business’ progress against its ESG and sustainability strategy.

Through engaging with key stakeholders at Amtico, Simply Sustainable was able to get beyond the surface and develop a true understanding of the business’ character, sustainability aspirations and progress during 2022. Equipped with this knowledge, we segmented the report in accordance with the four pillars of Amtico’s ESG strategy and used KPIs and targets to clearly communicate Amtico’s current position in its sustainability journey.

Simply Sustainable applied the principles of the best practice framework, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), during the development of the report. This led to further information being offered surrounding the management of Amtico’s material sustainability topics, thus providing greater transparency. In subsequent years, Amtico aims to report with reference to and, over time, in accordance with the GRI.

To find out how Simply Sustainable can help you develop your ESG and sustainability strategy request a call-back from one of our team of experts.

The story

Simply Sustainable has worked with GKN Automotive since early 2021, providing expertise to help build sustainability into the core of its business. Whilst GKN Automotive has a long history of embedding sustainability into its business, we have been able to provide focus and create a strategy that accelerates the company’s purpose of driving a cleaner, more sustainable world.

GKN Automotive wanted to ensure its approach was future-proofed. Our highly experienced sustainability experts and qualified consultants began working on a robust, deep insight of the sector, customers, suppliers and employees, exploring GKN Automotive’s dynamic needs, now and in the future. We conducted a risks and opportunities assessment of sustainability topics as well as a materiality assessment to highlight the top priority focus areas.

Working closely with the team at GKN Automotive, we pride ourselves on building strong working relationships and always being a joy to work with, these priority topics were further evaluated in the context of the business, the automotive manufacturing industry, the global landscape of the company and further external drivers. This analysis informed the development of the strategy, with a framework of KPIs, targets and action plans to achieve the strategy. The strategy was mapped to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), demonstrating how GKN Automotive contributes to the goals by its delivering strategy.

With the strategy in place, it was important to ensure key employees are informed, engaged and inspired about what this means for them. We developed and delivered a series of training sessions to senior leaders in key roles responsible for communicating the strategy to stakeholders. This training equipped employees with a fundamental understanding of sustainability, knowledge about the Sustainability Strategy and the ability to effectively communicate the sustainability work GKN Automotive is delivering.

Simply Sustainable continues to support the successful implementation of the strategy. This has included support with governance processes (including attending Executive Committee meetings), developing a Responsible Sourcing Policy, reviewing internal policies and conducting in-depth research. To showcase the achievements of the strategy, we are delighted to be assisting GKN Automotive in producing its first standalone Sustainability Report.

To find out how Simply Sustainable can help you develop your ESG and sustainability strategy request a call-back from one of our team of experts.

The story

One of the things we love about what we do is helping our clients to realise their ambitions. So when the team at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) told us about their desire to expand responsible business reporting in order to drive further engagement, we were thrilled to be able to support them.

The firm wasn’t new to this, having produced annual reports for each of the previous two years as part of its commitment to the UN Global Compact. Building on this, we were able to recommend an approach that would ultimately expand the reporting scope and generate content to attract a much broader internal and external audience.

During first phase we analysed HSF’s current approach against reporting best practice, targeting and agreeing specific areas for development. We then worked closely with the team to develop a structure and craft a narrative that did full justice to their far-reaching, global approach to responsible business and demonstrating its alignment with corporate objectives.

Through stakeholder interviews with senior partners, we uncovered and wrote new, engaging content – including headline features, performance highlights and case studies to showcase success – before providing our design recommendations for the final report to achieve a refreshed look and feel.

The story

Simply Sustainable is known for being a practical and inspiring consultancy so helping our clients to integrate sustainability into what they do and how they think is a great fit for us. That’s why, having developed EE’s new responsibility strategy, we were ideally placed to support its integration across the business as part of this long-term partnership.

We know that this requires a holistic approach, working at every level of the organisation. Here we started at the top, guiding leadership to advocate for sustainability and creating a strong governance and management structure which included feedback loops between the Board and core functions and established an external board of experts to advise and challenge the business.

Next, working across core functions in the business, we turned to identifying and developing the policies and processes needed to embed sustainability priorities into EE’s ways of working, before establishing the KPIs and systems that would drive accountability via monthly performance reporting.

EE’s workforce is diverse and varied so naturally, engagement and ownership of this agenda is a key priority. To address this, we worked with in-house teams to co-create and deliver a series of engagement events across the UK designed to ‘activate’ their interest in the social and environmental issues core to EE’s approach and their role in supporting company ambitions.

Elsewhere, we supported EE in partnership and programme development, reporting and benchmarking – a whole package tailored and delivered over time to bring sustainability to life in the business.