In this episode of "Game Changers", we dive into the intricacies of sustainable supply chain transformation and the crucial role of change management in this process. Hosted by Sophie Brazell-Ng, this insightful discussion features sustainability expert Matt Morton, who shares his knowledge on how businesses can adopt sustainable practices within their supply chains.
Matt defines key concepts such as sustainable supply chains and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), providing a clear understanding of these important frameworks. They explore a practical example in the fashion industry, illustrating how a traditional supply chain can be reimagined to be more sustainable.
Throughout the episode, Sophie and Matt highlight the importance of aligning change management principles with sustainability goals to ensure effective implementation and stakeholder engagement. They address common challenges, including change fatigue, and offer strategies for leveraging stakeholder engagement to foster a collaborative approach towards sustainability.
Listeners will gain valuable insights into the future of sustainable supply chains, learning how businesses can not only comply with legislation but also drive meaningful change that benefits both the planet and their bottom line.
Listen here or read on for an edited transcript.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Alright, guys, welcome back to the next episode of the Game Changers podcast. I'm here today with the lovely Matt Morton, and we're gonna be talking about change management, but in the context of sustainable supply chain transformation. Now, I don't know very much about this area, so I'm gonna be learning along with listeners who don't know very much about sustainable supply chain transformation.
But what we're hoping to have a really great discussion about today is how do we apply some change management techniques to help change things in the world around real topics that are really important to how we live and how the world works. So, before we go any further, Matt, please can you introduce yourself?
Matt Morton: Hello, everyone. I'm Matt. I'm one of our sustainability leads at Clarasys. So my area of focus, as Sophie alluded to, is looking at sustainability in the context of supply chains. So focusing across the breadth of sustainability from looking at net zero strategy and decarbonisation of supply chain through to human rights and environmental risk assessment in supply chains as well.
So covering E, S and G, across the board. And yeah, I'm looking forward to this conversation. I don't think, Sophie, we've actually talked about this beyond the four walls of this podcast. So nice to have a genuine conversation. We can just explore the topic together and see what we learn.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Yeah, absolutely.
I'm really excited to learn on this one. This is a really different area for me, and I know I've always got you in mind, Matt, when people are asking about the noble areas of sustainability. So I'm hoping that I can walk away with some key facts today.
Just as a reminder to everybody on the call, I'm your host today. My name is Sophie Brazell-Ng. I am one of our change or people in change specialists at Clarasys. So I like to think about all of the big topics that we have in the world, but how can we use the techniques and tools that we have at our disposal as change managers in order to help solve them, help move us on in projects and transformations to make sure we make a real difference.
Awesome. Right. I'm gonna start where I always start, and what I'm hoping listeners are hoping that I ask you first, Matt, is two definitions. First one, what is a sustainable supply chain?
Defining sustainable supply chains
Matt Morton: Yeah, great question. Well, a supply chain is essentially a big network of different actors in the system. So as the name suggests, you've got suppliers, you've got manufacturers, logistics providers, retailers, all of which are working together to bring a product or a service from complete inception through to raw materials manufacturing, all the way through to delivery to a customer and then the lifecycle of that product or service. Typically, that works in a linear fashion, although that's part of the challenge is to try and make that as circular as possible and make sure that the value of all of the materials in that supply chain is maintained at its highest level possible, for as long as possible. So we're not depleting the resources that we have available to us too quickly through that. So it is very interconnected and complex, as well as all of the physical materials and the financial capital that flows through it. You've got a lot of people involved in it that are contributing to it or impacted by it. Stakeholders across the system. So yeah, there's lots of stuff going in, lots of stuff coming out. I guess the reason why it's important from a sustainability perspective therefore, is that it has huge, wide reaching impacts and in the sort of global economic system we're in today, those supply chains typically stretch across many different territories and geographies, and that means that the impacts are often quite far away from where the product or service is used. So we see that typically over 90% of carbon emissions, for example, sit within a company's supply chain, and those are termed indirect emissions, which essentially means that they have to, for the most part, go through someone else to affect those emissions, which means that it's just a lot harder to do. So that's split across upstream emissions, where you have things like the waste that you might generate, your facilities, any business travel, employee commuting, and any sort of purchasing and upstream manufacturing before you actually produce a product to service. And then you've got all the stuff that happens after that point, which is, in the downstream supply chain, so your logistics and distribution, any sort of customer use and life cycle. So all the impacts that happen from there. So essentially, what that means is that it's a big complex challenge and collaboration through that is absolutely critical.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: That was a fantastic definition, thank you. You said it was extremely complex. I'm gonna try and play back what I think was the simple version of what you said there, but do correct me. Your supply chain is about the process of getting A to B, your product or your service from A to B. Although there's a complex web of actors and steps and processes that are involved.
The concept of a sustainable supply chain is getting from A to B in the most efficient, effective way that reduces the damage that we might be doing to the planet. Is that a bit of a summary? Have I understood correctly?
Matt Morton: Yeah, exactly. Perfect. That was a much more concise way of saying it. Yep.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: I've got tons of questions on that, but before I ask a couple more and we start thinking about how change management techniques can help, ESG is another terminology that comes up. As consultants, we love shorthand versions of things, but can you share with us what is ESG and how does that apply to sustainable supply chain transformation?
Understanding ESG
Matt Morton: Sure. Yeah. So ESG in its simplest sense stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. The three pillars that are used as part of frameworks for companies to embed those considerations across their company. Within a supply chain context, that can be things like on the environmental side, your carbon emissions, your waste, and your resource use throughout the supply chain.
Through a social lens, it can be labor and human rights. It can be diversity, equity, and inclusion. It can be community impact and social value. And then from a governance side of things, that's about sort of topics such as ethical sourcing, anti-corruption, supplier transparency, and all of the things that need to sit across the supply chain to enable it to become sustainable.
So ESG is more about a framework that is used for business to think about sustainability. It's just one of the terms of a complex range of terms that are used in this space. And it's principally being driven now by voluntary frameworks such as the ISSB standards, as well as emerging regulation such as CSRD, and CSDDD, which is a lot more acronyms to add to this. But essentially they're all frameworks, and pieces of regulation that are looking to embed this within companies' supply chains to respond to the increase in planetary pressures and as well as sort of investor and other stakeholder pressures.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Nice. So in summary, your supply chain is your actions of how you do it.
ESG is a framework that some guidance and principles of how you should do it in the best way.
Matt Morton: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: We've added loads of acronyms, but what we're trying to do for folks is we'll try and put those in the show notes and send out links to people.
Well, thank very much. I now have a better understanding of what the two terminologies mean, but I would love to bring an example to life for listeners. Can you give an example of a sustainable supply chain, or maybe even an example of a supply chain, and then how it could be changed to be more sustainable.
I'm happy for you to pick an industry, a hypothetical one, but it would be really good to bring kind of the concept to life here for listeners.
Case study: Sustainable supply chains in fashion
Matt Morton: Sure. Yeah, I'll try and pick an example and keep it simple. As I've said, it's a complex system.
If we think about something that everyone will be familiar with, which is fashion and textiles. So let's take the example of a T-shirt and how that's taken from its raw materials all the way through to purchasing by a customer and then, through its lifecycle. So I guess, traditionally, the supply chain today is a linear one. So the way that it tends to operate on a mass scale is that it will source materials from an area that's quite cheap. So it'll look to use materials that generally speaking are not as durable. Don't necessarily align to sort of standards in terms of recyclability, in terms of sort of extending its lifecycle. It'll generally be geared towards how can we procure this material as cheaply as possible while meeting a relatively low standard for quality that customers expect. I'm probably being quite harsh here, but I'm trying to paint like a bad example so that I can flip it on its head. So that sort of upstream will have a lot of impacts from the raw material sourcing. So if we're using virgin materials such as cotton, then that's quite water-intensive. Generally speaking, the cotton production will be in developing countries, be using resources that are probably already quite stretched. There'll be long transportation lines through from that raw material source through manufacturers. There's then the social side that comes in of whether the labor that's being used and the sort of human rights of those people are being respected. Are they being paid a decent wage? Do they have all of the rights that they should have in those facilities? And are we confident that there's no child exploitation in those supply chains? Then the actual sort of manufacturing process for a T-shirt, for instance, can be quite intensive in terms of water use in the sort of dying process. There's then the materials and the waste that happens in that manufacturing, and then that obviously then gets transported globally across the world to retailers and distributors adding to the sort of carbon emissions, from the transport. It's then sold with the idea that it probably won't last a huge amount of time, and there's not really sort of a plan in place and customers are not necessarily supported with giving them the right knowledge and tools to be able to get the most out of the item so that it lasts as long as it can. But also at the end of that t-shirt's life, you know, what happens to it to make sure that it avoids landfill and it can continue to be in the first instance, a t-shirt for someone else so that it's still retained at its highest level of value. But if it isn't, then, you know, how can those materials be repurposed? How can they be reused? And then all the way through to, okay, if they can't be reused in another way, can they be recycled to a lower value use all the way through? So that's sort of a, a bit of a view of how a t-shirt might make its way through a supply chain and some of the impacts across that.
The ideal outcome that we can work towards is that that is a circular process as much as possible. So firstly, how do we avoid the need for the T-shirt in the first place so that we don't have those raw materials coming out of the ground?
Sophie Brazell-Ng: You're like, no supply chain actually needed.
Matt Morton: Yeah, basically that would be great.
Or just, yeah, a very short supply chain, a very short circle. So yeah, how do we avoid the need for that in the first place as long as possible? Obviously there's gonna be demand for more t-shirts, but how do we reduce that in the first place? If we do need new t-shirts, how do we make sure that people are paid a fair wage?
How do we ensure that, as a minimum, their human rights are upheld, child exploitation is eradicated, but also, thinking more ambitiously, how do we support those people and those communities to not just meet their basic needs, but how can we have positive impacts beyond just doing no harm, is also really important.
How can we have transparency through that process is also critical for customers so that they can have an informed decision when it comes to buying a t-shirt?
There's regulation coming out, namely the Eco Design for Sustainable Products Regulation. That's an EU regulation, which is aiming to give customers visibility through what's called a digital product passport.
Simply, that could just be a QR code on a T-shirt that you could scan and you could see exactly all the materials, where they've come from, what suppliers have been involved throughout that process to enable customers to have that informed choice around, you know what, maybe I'll look for, you know, a secondhand T-shirt instead. 'Cause I think this is, you know, I don't want to make that decision.
Moving further down the supply chain, then it's about enabling customers, as I've said, to make informed decisions, not just at the point of purchase, but also post purchase. So how do you support them through their lifecycle to make sure that they're getting the most out of the T-shirt. Are they washing it in the right way to extend its life? And do they have all, you know, all the care instructions if they want to sell that t-shirt on a secondhand market, how do we make that as easy as possible rather than them just chucking it in the bin? And thinking about all of the different touch points across that journey to give people a gentle nudge to making the right decisions. So hopefully that's brought a little bit of life to how we might rethink supply chains to be more sustainable.
The role of change management
Sophie Brazell-Ng: I really loved that example. And from a change management perspective, because we're obviously thinking about people and implementing new processes and transformation, there are so many opportunities within that supply chain for change management thinking to help make that move. Obviously you've got the practical applications that have to get put in place, and those are gonna sometimes be the manufacturing or the more tangible processes. But then you've also got things that you were starting to mention at the end there. That's nudge theory and behaviour theory. How do you, once you've actually put a more sustainable supply chain in place, encourage your customers to change their buying behaviour or engage with the new supply chain?
Matt Morton: Exactly. Yeah. And I think change management has such a crucial role in leveraging some of the legislation, for instance, that's coming out, to really squeeze as much of the value out of it as possible. Because there might be ways that you can, so the example I use, for instance, if you want to put a digital product passport on a t-shirt, you could just put on a QR code and just, you know, whack it somewhere on a tag and you've not really thought about 'Okay, what does the customer need from this? What might some of the barriers be that that customer faces in actually performing some of the things that we might be asking of them? What are the barriers? How do we use nudge theory to reduce those as much as possible? And yeah, how do we create a bit of a toolkit that's informed by good change management principles to build that in rather than just what does the legislation say? How do we tick that box and not necessarily think about who the human is at the end of it, and whether they're gonna actually be capable of performing that, you know?
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Exactly. In a lot of work that we get involved in is we've thought really intensely about the process, and the process that's being put in place makes so much logical sense. And then I often get brought in, and it's like, why isn't the process working? We've got to change the process. And it's actually the difference you've got to make is, okay, now I'm a person going through the process, can I do all of the things that I'm being asked to do? And I know at Clarasys, we like to make use of the COM-B behaviour change model: capability, opportunity, and motivation. At all of the stages of those processes, where an actual person is required. In the example that you gave. Do I actually have the capability? Do I have a phone that allows me to do the scan or access to the internet that allows me to have a look at it? Do I have the opportunity? Am I in the right places? Where are the T-shirts being sold? And do I have the motivation? Do I understand why it's actually important to make it? Or actually am I just saying no, I just need a top, I want it now. All of those things are, I guess another layer on top of the process that's, we've got a great process in place. We now have a more sustainable supply chain, but can people actually use it and can people engage with it to get to the end result that we both want?
Matt Morton: Exactly. Yeah. And that is so crucial to make sure that that is designed in from the start. Because I hear and see a lot about programs in the supply chain that, as you said, process is designed brilliantly, but it hasn't had that customer-centric viewpoint built in from the start. And then often you find when you come up against those barriers, it's then quite hard to rewire and often more expensive to rewire versus having that lens incorporated from the outset.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Yeah. It's interesting you say design from the start. In your opinion, is that well done today in the supply chain world? Are we thinking in that way, or is that something that we are not seeing as often, but we apply to the way that we think about supply chain at Clarasys?
Matt Morton: I'd like to say I see a lot of it, but I think it's probably not as widely adopted as it could be at the moment. I think that's probably driven by it being quite hard to make that case up front. You know, if you are a sustainability professional in an in-house team, you might recognise that that's the right thing to do, but then how do you get buy-in from leadership to do that without necessarily having a clear business case from the outset? I think that's one of the key challenges. And then to overcome that, how do you have the mindset around innovation and how do you have the processes in place to learn from small pilots and have the attitude around, you know, we're gonna take the risk to build the business case by doing something small, experimental, to then build that bit of insight to say, right, we need to do this from the outset. I think that sort of mindset is probably not as widespread as it should be at the moment. I think it's so crucial to build that in from the start, because as I've said, it can mean that you get more return from your investment on some of these responses to regulation, you might get better customer loyalty and retention if you can think about that experience lens rather than just a pure compliance mindset. So yeah, I've seen some areas where it has clearly been considered. I think that's often in companies where they have been founded with a clear sort of purpose in mind and to continue the fashion sort of analogy, it's part of their fabric from their outset that they have been set up with, this is our purpose and this is our sort of USP. So then it makes sense to continue with that. It can be harder to, I guess, rewire an existing company that has maybe been built to just sell high quantities of materials. So. I think there's lots of complexity in why it's challenging today, but I think the key to getting over that is to have a more of an opportunity mindset. Embrace the potential innovation from it and build small cases where you can to make that change, to help win over those hearts and minds to then make the change.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Yeah. It is interesting because it's thinking a lot about what is the driver for the original change to become more sustainable? Is it because you have to do it for legislation reasons, which I'm sure there are a lot of places out there that are doing it for those very reasons and aren't actually bothered about the impact that they have from a sustainable perspective. It's a tick box exercise, versus those who, as you say, are more purpose-led and have a true reason to make the supply chain more sustainable. I guess from my perspective, something that I find really interesting and I wanna pull on the thread of building the hearts and minds of maybe those companies that aren't necessarily purpose-led. It's a technique that we use a lot in the change management space and others might be referring to is building a case for change or building stories around the reason why it's important to make that change. And I think that's an area that, as you were talking about it, that our two specialist areas really naturally combine to help convince and help business owners understand the importance and reason for making the change, which then helps create a compelling business case or can help turn those that were more, actually, I'm doing it for the reasons to align with legislation into, I'm actually doing this for a real purpose and a real reason. I think that's like a, a nice starting point where I would be looking to come in from my perspective.
But I don't know if you've got any thoughts on that Matt, or if there are any other areas that you would think that you've got a business that isn't very purpose-driven, it's just come to you to say, actually, I'd like to do this. I need to fit some legislation. How would you go about having or try having a different conversation with them to bring in that hearts and minds or that reason why they're actually making the real change?
Leveraging stakeholder engagement
Matt Morton: Yeah, it's a really good question. I think firstly, the main step is to understand your audience, who the personalities are across the audience, what do they stand to lose and what do they stand to gain from the change that you are proposing? I think that can help you understand where the message needs to be tailored towards different audiences to get that buy-in. I think that firstly, just doing that exercise of mapping, right, who is it I need to have a conversation with.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Your classic stakeholder map matrix. Yep,
Matt Morton: Exactly.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Who and why?
Matt Morton: Exactly. So that's very critical. I think from the outset. I think leveraging the urgency and the fact that compliance is a mandatory need is important.
What I've found to be quite effective, and what's actually useful about a lot of this legislation that applies to supply chains, is that there are cross-cutting themes across all of these pieces. They might have a different level of scope. They might have different timelines for their application, but they'll all have common themes around data governance in supply chains, a level of supplier engagement, a level of transparency and reporting of data in supply chains. So all of these are sort of cross-cutting themes that you're gonna have to build capability in as an organisation to respond to them effectively. So there's a case to be made of well, we can build our capability on a point-by-point basis and take each piece of legislation as it comes, but in my mind that's quite inefficient and you'll get less return on your investment. You might, you know, have duplication of effort and you have to go through multiple change cycles. Whereas if you can identify what those cross-cutting themes are, and design programs that are geared towards capabilities that you know are gonna cut across them, you can build capability in a more holistic way that means you get ahead of the painful conversations of, right, the next piece of legislation is coming out we're gonna have to do this over again or do this in a slightly different way. Wait, didn't we just do that for this other thing? Why didn't we do it then, you know, there's all those things that I think will speak to people who don't necessarily have that instant connection to sustainability and of the wider sort of purpose and impacts, but might just have a very commercial mindset of how do we just do this as efficiently and painlessly as possible with as least disruption as possible?
So. I think it's, yeah, understanding what that stakeholder matrix looks like, building a solid understanding of some of the things that those people stand to gain and lose, and then making sure that you understand what needs to be done and feeding that through in the right channels to, to bring people on board is probably what I would recommend.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: I think you've touched on two really good points there. The first one is using that classic technique, as you said, of stakeholder management. Understanding the needs and the motivations of your stakeholders so you can tailor messages to them appropriately, back to hearts and minds, really, and bring information or involve them in the conversations at the right point. What do they stand to get from this that actually means something to them? Because yes, you might be going in it from a, I'm going to create a more sustainable supply chain. But actually, for all of the, to use your original analogy, actors in the system might not necessarily care about that. Our job is to bring it all together into one system, but each individual actor within that system has a different reason for wanting to make a change, and we need to understand what that motivation is to make it appealing to them. Which is really hard to do because it's involving a lot of players, and you might have to sort of segment your way through that supply chain. You might not be able to do it all from the top unless you're starting to talk about getting the business case in order to make the initial first changes.
Addressing change fatigue
Sophie Brazell-Ng: I think the other thing that I found interesting was you were starting to touch on is change fatigue. And there's always going to be new legislation. There's always going to be new boxes that we need to tick. And to be honest, rightfully so, because we have to change the way that we do things in the world for the purpose of the planet. But what I liked about how you were talking, about making changes to the supply chain is you've understood your stakeholders and what motivates them, but you're building into the process of changing it. A mindset that allows other changes to come in in the future. So actually we are not redesigning or designing or making changes to our supply chain because the legislation has come in, but it's because we've got a greater thing that we are moving towards, and that actually really helps prevent change fatigue.
So it doesn't just feel like, oh, I've got another change because X legislation's come in. It's like, okay, no, it's actually getting us to the purpose that we need to achieve. Or even if it isn't sustainable purpose that each individual has, it gets 'em closer to the stakeholders' motivations, needs and wants.
Matt Morton: Exactly. Yeah, and I think you touched on a good point there, that it's not just a sustainability team that's gonna stand to gain from some of this change as well. So if you improve the quality and availability of the data that's coming from your suppliers, everybody wins. You know, your procurement team wins, your manufacturing team wins. It's something that can cut across lots of different internal functions, which is another key point is as part of that winning over hearts and minds, I think the critical thing for in-house sustainability teams to do, and us as sustainability consultants to enable them to do, is to identify where there are those win-win situations. Make sure that there are the right processes and governance in place to discuss and build cases collaboratively with other teams so that when it comes to engaging leadership, you've got a shared message and clear consensus that stretches across the business. And it doesn't feel like it's just one team trying to shout really loudly about something that only they care about. Making that case that everybody is gonna win from this. And I think, you know, the important thing for sustainability in that regard is that it gives you opportunities to try and unlock the budget from across the organisation to potentially do that as well, which I think is something that, you know, speaking to heads of sustainability, is often something that is quite tight to make that type of change.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Yeah, I think what I'm reflecting on here is the active designing a sustainable supply chain is actually only half the battle here. It's the convincing that a new sustainable supply chain needs to be implemented feels like the other half of the battle. Which you would expect to be already in place. But actually as we've discussed here, that when you've got so many different actors involved with so many different motivations, that actually is a really difficult thing to do. And actually convincing people to make a change, even if we know it's the right one, or even if we have the future, design is a barrier in order to bringing this all to life.
Do you know, I started this conversation, as I said, I didn't really know much about Sustainable Supply Chain or ESG, and in truth, I just thought it was about looking at your current process and making recommendations on a new process. But walking away from this conversation, I have a very different view on that and all about how you convince actors along that process to make that change, to ensure that the change is sustainable, ironically, to prevent change fatigue, and that you consider the customers at the end from a behaviour Com-B capability, opportunity, motivation perspective, in order to make that change to your supply chain actually happen, make it so that it's adopted, make it sure that it's actually realised. That's my like main takeaway from this conversation, which is an enormous takeaway actually. It's not really a main one. I think it's multiple ones, but I'd love to know from you Matt if there's been any key takeaways from this discussion that we've had today.
Matt Morton: Similar to your takeaway, I think the supply chain, as we've discussed, is a very complex system of different actors and that needs to be met with a response that considers that a complexity from the outset. So the complexity of what the different actors capabilities are, what their agency is to bring about change, what they stand to lose and gain from it. Considering that upfront allows you to pursue, in theory, the path of least resistance to the change that you want to make in the system, rather than potentially wasting a lot of effort trying to change a process and expecting the same outcome when there is potentially another route that you can take, which better responds to the wide array of resource that you have available in your system.
As an example, an organisation that I've seen do that in the past is Ørsted. So they, I think as part of their supplier engagement strategy, recognise that asking their suppliers to do everything and to be sort of the actors that are leading the change within their system is not realistic because to bring it back to the com b, they might not have the capability to be able to do it. They might not have the knowledge and the skills to enact that change. They might not have the opportunity through the time available to them, the capacity, they might not be ready and they might simply just not be motivated to do it. You know what are they gonna get out this? I'm just seeing that this is gonna cost me more. Or you might just have a supplier that doesn't believe in the wider cause.
So reading about Ørsted and their approach, what they've taken is more of a partnerships model to that to look at, okay, well who are our competitors and who are our other actors in the system that might be well positioned to bring about the change and how do we work with them rather than continually knocking on one door with great difficulty and not a lot of result. How do we assess what our system view is and whether there is another path of least resistance to bring about the same change, if that's through an industry body, is it directly through customers? Is it through, you know, collaborating with our competitors? So I think, yeah, that sort of complexity needs to be met with a bit more of a expansive systems thinking approach would be sort of the takeaway I've got from what we've discussed.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Love it, and I love the use of the systems thinking, which I think is probably a topic that actually we should cover on an episode of this podcast.
Resources to learn more about sustainable supply chains
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Sadly, I'm gonna have to start bringing the conversation to an end, but I am really walking away with a desire to learn more about this area.
Matt, are there any resources, books, courses, tools that you would recommend to any listeners if they wanna find out more?
Matt Morton: Yeah, so I think there are a few good resources that I look out for. So the UN Global Compact is a brilliant resource. They post a lot of webinars on this topic and they also publish case studies. They have one specifically on supplier engagement with case studies from Denmark, which is where I read about Ted. Some great case studies in there.
Science-Based Targets initiative, they have case studies where companies have set supplier engagement targets. So there's some good ones on there.
Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. They have an enormous, basically PhD document, which I don't know if I should be recommending this actually 'cause it's about 250 pages long.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Okay. If you like a detailed read, go in there. Yeah.
Matt Morton: If you want some bedtime reading that looks at the intersection between change management and sustainability, so that's, if you want to become a doctor in this area, you can read that.
But yeah. Those UNGC and SBTI are a bit more practical. I'd recommend looking at those.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Awesome. And I think obviously at Clarasys you do a lot of this work, and I think for anyone listening to this conversation, it's obvious that you think about the change management and the people within the system, as you said, systems thinking.
For anybody who wants to talk to you about this a little bit more or get in touch and about how Clarasys can help, can you share how to contact you, Matt?
Matt Morton: Yeah, of course. So please do reach out to me on LinkedIn. There will also be a link to my email and other contact details on our website, and I'd love to just have a bit of a rambly chat, if anything, about this 'cause yeah, it's a fascinating topic.
Sophie Brazell-Ng: Awesome. Thanks Matt. It's been so lovely to talk to you about an area I didn't know much about and an area that you're clearly really, really passionate about.
I've been your host today. As a repeat, my name is Sophie Brazell-Ng, if you'd like to talk to me about Clarasys, about anything we've covered on the podcast or anything that we can help you in the people and change management space, reach out to me on LinkedIn or via my Clarasys email. That's sophie.brazellNg@clarasys.com. Wonderful. Thank you very much guys. Look forward to seeing you in the next one.
Matt Morton: Thanks, everyone.
Show notes
Guest bio
Matt Morton
Matt is an experienced sustainability consultant who joined Clarasys in 2022 from a built environment background with Arup, where he supported clients to embed sustainability principles in the design of buildings and public space.
At Clarasys, he is focused on helping organisations develop and implement strategies that empower individuals and foster broader systems change to address key sustainability challenges. Matt has a strong understanding of topics such as net-zero carbon, circular economy, and social impact, as well as expertise in sustainability reporting, governance, user-centric design, and data analysis.
Outside of work, Matt enjoys trying his hand at a number of sports (with mixed results), sampling London's restaurant and gig scene and taking long walks with his dog.
Find Matt on LinkedIn here.
Terminology / resources mentioned
- ESG - Environmental, Social, and Governance
- ISSB standards - The ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) standards are a set of globally applicable sustainability reporting standards designed to provide a consistent and comparable framework for companies to disclose sustainability-related information.
- CSRD - The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is a European Union regulation that sets new standards for how companies disclose information about their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.
- CSDDD - The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is an EU directive that mandates companies to conduct due diligence on human rights and environmental impacts across their operations and value chains.
- Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is a European Union regulation that aims to make sustainable products the norm on the EU market.
- UN Global Compact (UNGC)
- Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTI)
- Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment's PHD document
