5 Key Factors for Driving Environmental Sustainability Success

5 Key Factors for Driving Environmental Sustainability Success

Concentrix hosted our first Environmental Sustainability Roundtable on July 16, 2021, bringing together a group of like-minded clients for some good, green conversation. This virtual event was dedicated to providing a catalyst for sustainable development, fostering partnerships, sharing best practices, and looking for ways to collaborate on sustainability initiatives.

The roundtable, which I co-hosted with Rick Rosso, Concentrix Executive Vice President Sales and Account Management, included sustainability leaders from our clients’ companies, representing some of the world’s top brands from a cross-section of industries.

Participants told us that learning about other organizations’ sustainability initiatives and the challenges they face was one of the most important discussion points they could take back to their companies. We couldn’t agree more—so we’re sharing the top five takeaways from the roundtable to help you with your company’s environmental sustainability success.

1. Sustainability is becoming democratized.

While sustainability efforts were originally centralized, commonly within procurement and real estate teams, there’s been a shift in sustainability focus from a single team to across organizations. Companies are increasingly implementing sustainability goals and measurements from the top down and within all business units, where everyone has a part to play in moving sustainability initiatives forward. This democratization of sustainability is being driven by stakeholder demand—investors, suppliers, clients, customers, and employees all want to know what companies are doing around sustainability.

2. Measurement makes it real.

In the past few years, there’s been an acceleration in the ability and need to measure, track, and monitor sustainability in a meaningful way. A growing network of stakeholders are asking how companies operate, and are ranking their sustainability practices. Companies, in turn, are establishing sustainability requirements for their suppliers, and implementing reporting requirements to measure suppliers’ progress and maturity.

3. Change is driving up and down the supply chain.

Sustainability leaders are focusing on reporting and getting accurate data, using tools and business sustainability rating providers like EcoVadis to assess suppliers. A growing trend in the marketplace is to also look at ways to bring the value of sustainability to customers in ways such as:

  • recycled, refurbished, and energy efficient products
  • tools and education to help customers measure and understand their own carbon footprint, emissions output, and the impact of their spend
  • service contracts with clients to control waste and bring products back to the company to push through their recycle/refurbish cycle

4. Peer benchmarking is a key driver.

One of the biggest drivers of sustainability progress is understanding what peers and other companies/industries are doing, that your company could—or should—be doing. Participating in forums like this roundtable, reading other companies’ ESG reports, and constantly looking at how other companies are tackling sustainability, are powerful sources for benchmarking where you stand, learning best practices, and driving progress for your business.

5. Partnerships are vital.

Probably the most resounding, unanimous takeaway from the roundtable discussion—you can’t do it alone. Partnerships are vital to drive environmental sustainability success beyond what any single company can do on its own. Companies need to look for ways to work with partners, suppliers, customers, employees, and their communities to support their sustainability initiatives and help them achieve their goals.

What’s Next

The conversation doesn’t stop here. We look forward to further discussion with the group of clients who participated in our inaugural roundtable, and are planning more roundtable discussions with other clients.

We can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together.



Get involved:
If you’re a Concentrix client and you want to participate in a future roundtable—or find out how we can work together on joint sustainability initiatives—please talk to your Concentrix account manager.

Learn more: Read our 2021 Sustainability Report to learn more about Concentrix’ sustainability goals, plans, and progress.