An evolving landscape of ESG legislation, voluntary frameworks and changing investor, supplier and customer expectations is creating a strong imperative to develop a future-proofed approach to sustainability. Where sustainability has traditionally existed as a standalone function, in the future more is being demanded of the entire organisation and value chain. As such, it is crucial to understand how this agenda can be driven effectively in the long term.
The Academic Publishing Company engaged us to support them in understanding how to align their ESG operating model with the rapidly evolving landscape of ESG legislation. They needed to assess their current maturity and identify gaps to ensure their existing strategic ambition, voluntary commitments such as SBTi net-zero targets and GRI reporting, as well as growing regulatory obligations, notably the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), are able to be met in the long-term.
Combining our expertise in sustainability strategy, operating model design, transformational change and delivery, we brought together cross-functional stakeholders to gain clarity and prioritise next steps for building long-term capacity and resilience.
Our approach centred around the following steps:
- Existing data and information review: We ran a detailed review of existing data and documentation on sustainability activities across the organisation, including strategic decision-making, roles & responsibilities, capacity & skills, operational workflows, systems & tools, governance & policy, and data & reporting practices. This enabled us to build a comprehensive view of how sustainability was being delivered today to inform further analyses and stakeholder engagement.
- ESG regulation analysis: Analysis of key in-scope legislation was performed to build a picture of the requirements that would need to be met, and by whom, across the organisation. This allowed us to build a clearer understanding of what the future operating model would need to deliver on.
- Capability mapping: We developed a map of all capabilities (i.e. the ability of an organisation to do something) necessary to deliver on the organisation’s future sustainability ambition and regulatory requirements.
- Stakeholder engagement: Using insights from the analyses and capability map, we ran interviews and workshops with critical functions across the organisation - such as procurement, finance, IT, risk & compliance. The purpose of this engagement was to gather insight into the maturity gaps across the capabilities and, subsequently, to generate critical choices for the client to consider as part of the design of the future ESG operating model. For example, who owns a specific process or whether a capability is fulfilled in-house or contracted.
- Future operating model (from-to): We consolidated our insights into a simple ‘from-to’ format to illustrate the key areas where the operating model needed to evolve to become future-fit. This was complemented by detailed documentation of the as-is model to facilitate any re-design.
- Enabling change recommendations: Finally, the team outlined a recommended path forward to build on the initial insight - prioritising efforts where risk and uncertainty were higher - to provide the client with clarity on how to sequence future work to manage capacity while building resilience.
- Enhanced understanding of the client’s ESG operating model maturity and readiness for compliance.
- Clear documentation of the 'as-is' and 'to-be' states to facilitate the transition and redesign of the operating model.
- Enhanced cross-functional alignment and accountability for ESG initiatives through stakeholder engagement and capability mapping.
- Improved stakeholder engagement through interviews and workshops, leading to better-informed decisions and critical choices for the future ESG operating model.
- Clarity on priority next steps for building capacity and resilience for future ESG regulation.
