Q&A by Gabriella Lovas with Oliver Milliner, Head of Sustainability for the University of Exeter and Falmouth University. Oliver has developed two sustainability strategies for a listed retail company in New Zealand and three others for universities in the UK
| How can you convince your management or board to have a sustainability strategy?
As things are today, pretty much all companies want to develop a sustainability strategy, so the appetite is there now. However, quite often the challenge is they don’t know how to develop one and what it looks like. Therefore, quite a lot of the time they’ll just say, we don’t want to go there because they might not have someone with the expertise to be able to develop it. Or they might just bring in a consultant who will develop something relatively superficial and not build the strategy into the core of the company. I think we’re all becoming good at reporting – looking backwards. However setting achievable goals and pathways into the future (forward facing) and delivering this, can be one of the most challenging aspects of this kind of job. Getting leadership buy-in on sustainability is basically like building a business case. It’s no different to a company saying we know there’s an opportunity there, but we don’t have much understanding as to how to pursue that. As with a business case, you need to do a SWOT analysis. In other words, you need to be able to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to the development of a sustainability strategy.
I think we’re all becoming good at reporting – looking backwards. However setting achievable goals and pathways into the future (forward facing) and delivering this, can be one of the most challenging aspects of this kind of job.
| How did your company develop its first strategy?
Starting off, we used consultants from one of the Big 4. As they typically give high-level, general advice, they can be helpful at first to help set the foundations. When you’re in the early stages of strategy development, it is crucial that materiality reviews and reasoning are established. This will help the strategy develop and evolve over time. In the first strategy we developed, we set some very high-level goals. They weren’t specific, at all. We said, for example, that we need to investigate the different waste streams. That was a very broad goal. A consultant had come in and had done some interviews internally over a three-month period. The materiality assessment they did to develop a strategy was quite superficial. The second time around, we worked with the same consultants again but the service we received was lacking. The reason for this was that they were telling us the same information from the first strategy we developed. The problem with sustainability consultants is that they can be brilliant in helping set the foundations, however, as your strategy evolves you seek new and more detailed information about your company’s impacts. It is really challenging for consultants to discover all of this over a confined review period.
You could argue that sustainability frameworks being developed at an industry level can be far more effective with strategy development now. What was helpful for us as a fashion company was The Higg Index, which is an apparel and footwear industry self-assessment standard to rate environmental and social sustainability throughout the supply chain. It was launched by The Sustainable Apparel Coalition. We also used the B Corp, which gave us really good guidance on pathway development and governance.
The problem with sustainability consultants is that they can be brilliant in helping set the foundations, however, as your strategy evolves you seek new and more detailed information about your company’s impacts. It is really challenging for consultants to discover all of this over a confined review period. You could argue that sustainability frameworks being developed at an industry level can be far more effective with strategy development now.
| How can industry associations help companies in setting up their sustainability strategy?
Companies are developing strategies in different ways now. One way is from the inside out through internal reviews and independent consultant support. Independent materiality reviews and strategy development can be an expensive and time-bound process. Thus, what is happening now is that industry associations are informing companies of what they should be focusing on by developing frameworks and guidance. We’ve found that when looking at companies by sector, they can have a similar materiality construct. For example, in fashion and retail, they have the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. They produce toolkits or frameworks that companies can use to build into their strategies. Every fashion company has a similar materiality makeup – it is all about sourcing materials and manufacturing them as well as dealing with similar social issues and transportation challenges. There are industry associations in some other industries, too, that are really supporting their members in their strategy development by giving them structure, guidance, gap analysis and measures to report on progress year on year basis. When you do your strategy development, you can use these frameworks to show your board how the company is progressing against industry standards. They can help you understand things like data collection and analysis methodologies, how to develop transport plans etc. Each year we can rate how we’re progressing against each action. Every time we present our update to the board, we can say we have 100 actions, 55 of which have been completed, 14 are in progress, and 11 have yet to begin. So you track your progress.
| How did your materiality assessment help with strategy?
When we talk about strategy, we also have to involve materiality. The research and materiality phase is fundamental to strategy development because it tells you where you should focus your strategy. It should also give you guidance on your targets and objectives. Alongside this, it also talks about developing data and analytics and establishing governance to support evolution and development. As your strategy evolves, you should be seeking wider and more detailed information on your organisational impacts.
It is really important when you’re thinking about strategy and materiality, to think about it from a macro level, mid-level but also from a micro level. When you start your strategy, you are going to have a pretty good understanding of your macro and mid-level, but the micro level will be relatively blurry. And that’s important because what you’re working towards is to create solutions and drive change amongst the more granular bits of information. It’s like a journey. You go deeper and deeper as time goes by. Once you have a better understanding of the details, that’s when you can make some progressive changes. As all of this can be overwhelming, your sustainability manager will not be able to manage all of this. This is why it is so important to build governance, structure and accountability across the organisation so that departments begin to manage this independently. The Sustainability Manager can then support and report on progress.
| How do you build a sustainability team?
In my current role, four years ago, we didn’t have a team. Our materiality assessment helped us identify where we have holes, and what kind of resources we need to help us reach our objectives. For example, we now have a waste manager who looks after all the waste and recycling. We also have a biodiversity manager specialising in conservation and biodiversity. Typically in a lot of strategies, you have working groups. In a sustainability strategy, these may include working groups on energy procurement, biodiversity, waste, communications, travel, environmental compliance and social areas. Once we developed our foundations, and our working groups to work on key areas, we regularly review our sustainability strategy. Every three to four months, we produce a report in terms of how we are progressing against our strategy. The person who’s leading those working groups will come to the table and say, these are the areas that we are working on, these are the challenges we are facing. When you start to invest people and resources into those areas, you will just uncover more information. So that’s why materiality is quite helpful. It also becomes quite obvious the areas lacking in resources as time goes on.
A lot of strategies are aimed at 2030 just because it’s nice to hit a decade and feel like, wow, this is cool. To be honest, a lot of targets are just very randomly made without much science.
| Why is it so hard to set metrics and targets?
Here is where it can get tricky since setting targets binds you to them. Companies don’t really like doing that because things change, which is why a lot of targets are very, very far away. It’s like 2030 or even 2040 because it gives companies time. If there are no short-term targets, there is no accountability
A lot of targets can be taken from guidance from the IPCC report or the Paris Agreement. If the government is setting targets, quite a lot of companies will align to the same timelines. A lot of strategies are aimed at 2030 just because it’s nice to hit a decade and feel like, wow, this is cool. To be honest, a lot of targets are just very randomly made without much science. But then there’s nothing wrong with going for 2030. It gives you a bit of a buffer when it says you should at least be meeting a decarbonization target by this point. Anyway, based on the materiality assessment, we adopted net zero targets focused on Scope 1, 2 and 3. There are, of course, other sustainability targets. For example, biodiversity isn’t so net zero focused, it is more about improving the biodiversity itself, although it also contributes to emissions capturing. We also defined our key priorities, such as establishing a culture of sustainability and climate care, sustainable design and resource consumption, regenerating ecology and biodiversity, clear governance, and accountability. When discussing targets, it is also important to talk about data, since when you hit a target, it has data behind it. The data sets that we are using are pretty poor. Within Scope 1 and 2, they are OK, but within Scope 3, which is the bulk of the emissions, it is not great. It is very superficial. That’s the biggest challenge.
| How often do you do a materiality assessment?
Materiality should be like an ongoing pursuit of knowledge to then inform the strategy updates because it’s so fundamental to strategy. You should be doing a materiality review every two to three years when you review and summarise your impacts. However, a company should understand its impacts on a day-to-day basis. It’s just basically a chance for them to pull everything together and present that to the rest of the company. It is the responsibility of the sustainability manager or person in charge of sustainability to think every day about materiality.
You should be doing a materiality review every two to three years when you review and summarise your impacts. However, a company should understand its impacts on a day-to-day basis.
| As Head of Sustainability, how do you do it?
Let me give you an example. When I first arrived, we knew that biodiversity was material, but we didn’t have enough detailed information about what to do. The materiality then was very superficial. All it said was that we should address biodiversity. Now, a few years later, we know so much more about the details and we know exactly what the impacts are. Now, we have a biodiversity manager responsible for implementing the biodiversity objectives. As these plans develop, the company will have so much more information because we are doing it on a day-to-day basis. We now do an ecological report on our biodiversity and also more detailed assessments, not just materiality assessments. As time goes on, we will be collecting even more information. When it comes to your materiality, let’s say in two years, you’ve got tons more information and you can then set new objectives.
| What biodiversity measures and tools do you use?
We have what’s called the Natural England biodiversity metric tools. Natural England is the government’s adviser for the natural environment to help protect and restore our natural world. Typically, we would hire an ecological consultant to perform a GIS mapping and use an index to score how biodiverse certain areas are. GIS stands for Geographic Information System. It is a software that combines the power of a map with that of a database to create, manage, and analyze information, particularly about locations. Let’s say there’s a forest, for instance, and they go around and observe the trees and plants, as well as the animals and birds. They can then score how biodiverse that forest is, and then they can use that as a baseline. The same indexes will be used when we resurvey in five years to see if we have gone forward or backwards.
More Q&As by Gabriella Lovas?
Addressing challenges in biodiversity reporting | Q&A with Philippe Diaz
Understanding the ESRS Thresholds | Q&A with Mike Jennings
Navigating and mapping the jungle of sector standards | Q&A with Philippe Diaz
| brief bio
Oliver is a sustainability and ESG specialist with global experience. He has implemented sustainability programs for a listed multinational retailer in Australasia as well as two universities in the UK.In his current position as Head of Sustainability for the University of Exeter and Falmouth University, he is responsible for embedding sustainability strategies across the organisations, including operations and facilities.
Gabriella Lovas is a GRI Certified Sustainability Professional with a CFA Certificate in ESG Investing and a Masters in Economics. She specialises in ESG and corporate sustainability reporting.
As a financial journalist and business writer, she has worked with international news agencies, such as Bloomberg, Big 4 consulting firms and start-ups. The purpose of her content is to educate and inform readers about sustainability in a clear, compelling way. She researches, writes, and edits articles, blog posts, and educational materials, using SEO tools and techniques to optimize them for online visibility.
Her passion is to support the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive economy.
| All opinions expressed are those of the author and/or quoted sources. investESG.eu is an independent and neutral platform dedicated to generating debate around ESG investing topics.
