Most companies, when starting a Sustainability Strategy, look for places to resist. What did you focus on when creating Acme Group’s Sustainability Strategy?
In the Group of Companies, we look at Sustainability through three main areas: environmental protection, social area and governance. As we have already identified significant themes in all these areas, the main focus is to implement an action plan to manage our sustainability goals.
In the Acme Group, we had already done a lot of work in various areas before putting together the Sustainability Strategy, on topics such as social responsibility, paper reduction policy, non-discrimination policy, team formation and reward issues, partner reliability assessment, anti-corruption, implementation of fair competition principles.
Out of all three areas, the smallest amount of work in the companies was in the field of environmental protection, that is, in the management of the environmental impact of the companies, in the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions, so we are now working intensively on this on the scale of the entire Group.
How did you realize those areas of Sustainability that are relevant to Acme Group and what goals have you set for yourself? Maybe you already have a job done somewhere?
In order to set sustainability goals, clarify significant ESG topics, we did it systematically, assembled an internal team at the Group and company level and worked together with external consultants. Such cooperation gave us excellent results, because the internal team has a good understanding of business needs, internal culture, and the consultants helped with methodological, regulatory, market trends knowledge in the field of Sustainability. When setting the Sustainability goals, we performed an impact significance analysis, which aimed to identify and evaluate the negative and positive effects created by the Group’s businesses on the economy, the environment and people. We also assessed the expectations of various stakeholders in the field of Sustainability. We have identified significant topics in each of the ESG parts, prepared indicators for monitoring significant topics, goals and necessary actions to achieve them.
I can mention a few of the goals, such as one of the environmental goals – reducing the amount of greenhouse gases generated in the Company’s activities. To that end, we are working intensively: we have started to calculate the amount of greenhouse gases in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd assessment areas – for this, it is necessary to collect and systematize various data such as fuel, energy consumption, fuel types, the amount of CO2 emissions released by the products sold by the companies, necessary for the calculations, to inventory the level of detail data will be needed in the future in order to identify and manage the negative impact of business on the environment.
We have also collected a whole series of indicators related to social topics, such as reducing employee turnover, engagement, employee health and well-being; also in the fields of training and education, we invest in employee training, compensation surveys, employee health and directly through health insurance, and flexible working conditions, remote work opportunities. However, even in these social topics, we are now working on automating the monitoring indicators, so that we can better manage the social topics related to our employees as well.
Social responsibility towards society is also important for us. To that end, our Group companies contribute to the general well-being of society and support social projects. In order to develop social responsibility activities, we have established a separate Acme Group organization, Acme Geri darbai, where employees-volunteers of Group companies develop and develop social projects in the areas of education promotion, healthy lifestyle and environmental protection, as well as participate in community projects, such as helping the people of Ukraine.
From the Management side, topics such as responsible supply chain, business ethics, transparency, data and cyber security prevail here – these topics are significant for all our Group Companies and we have been working on them for a number of years.
What do you think is most important for business organizations to succeed in achieving their ESG goals? How do you ensure the success of your sustainability transformation yourself?
In order for ESG implementation to be successful, it is very important that responsible persons are appointed, empowered to make and implement decisions, and that sustainability goals are integrated into the company’s strategic goals, risk management system and are a component of the company’s operations, business and governance.
We are a Group of companies, therefore, when determining responsibilities in the field of sustainability, we distinguished the levels of the Group and the Companies, as the Head of Risk Management and Sustainability of the Group, I am responsible for the coordination of sustainability management at the level of the entire Group. Also, Acme Group-wide teams working with the relevant areas of Sustainability ensure a uniform implementation standard in the Group’s companies. For example, from the area of Environment – the finance/accounting team ensures a unified calculation of greenhouse gases (hereinafter referred to as GHG) across Group companies, in social topics such as employee satisfaction, well-being and wellness, employee training and education, diversity and equal opportunities, employee safety – the unified standard of implementation is ensured by the People and Culture team, and the unified standard in human rights, competition and other compliance issues is ensured by the Legal Department. We have also appointed persons responsible for the implementation of ESG at the Company level in each Acme Group Company.
We have integrated ESG significant topics into the risk management system operating in the Group, which helps to systematically achieve the set goals by implementing the established action plans, and thus ESG issues regularly become part of the agenda of the companies’ highest management bodies.
As governments, international organizations and the public pay more attention to sustainability, the changing regulatory environment becomes more and more important, not only for the company itself, but also for the countries involved. What kind of attention do you pay to your corporate group partners in this regard? Has there been any change in this area since the start of the sustainability transformation?
Working with international partners such as Apple, Dell, Telia, etc. many Sustainability topics have been implemented by our partners and our Group companies for many years, especially those that touch many social topics such as equal opportunities, human rights, employee safety, employee training and education, as well as Management topics such as Business Ethics, corruption prevention, partner reliability assessment, sanctions compliance, data security, competition law compliance.
Acme Group companies pay great attention to a responsible supply chain and business ethics, to that end the Group companies not only adhere to high business ethics standards themselves, but also seek to ensure that partners and customers adhere to them, act ethically, adhere to anti-corruption, trade requirements, compliance with sanctions and fair competition principles.
In recent years, the need has arisen from the Partners for us to have set Environmental goals, indicators and action plans, and for the companies of our Group, in order to estimate the GHG emissions as accurately as possible, there is a need to obtain the most accurate CO2 data of the supplied products from the partners.
Sometimes companies are afraid to take action in the area of sustainability because they fear that it will be expensive, preferring cosmetic changes instead. However, growing public awareness and investor interest in sustainable businesses seem to be rewarding their efforts. How would you rate the cost of sustainability transformation? Is it really something uncomfortable?
Of course, sustainability transformation requires investments in both people, business processes, and technology, and this is not convenient. However, looking at the long-term perspective, it is important to us that our organization contributes to ensuring the economy, nature and people’s well-being. Therefore, sustainability is not just a one-time project for us, but a part of Acme Group’s long-term business strategy and a long-term investment.
Tags: Sustainability practice corporate groups sustainable Acme Group
