Step Advisory, in partnership with Ince, assisted with the facilitation of a sustainability strategy for the Empact Group leadership team that was aligned to the organisation’s purpose and corporate strategy. As part of the process, awareness around sustainability was created within the leadership team and the overall direction the Group wants to move towards from a sustainability perspective was determined.
Empact Group, founded over 30 years ago, provides catering services, cleaning solutions and integrated facilities management solutions to its clients. With their businesses employing over 25 000 employees and their solutions spanning over a large number of sites and touching a large number of people, Empact Group has a significant impact on a number of people, the environment, clients and communities. While it was not yet a regulatory requirement for Empact Group to formalise their sustainability strategy and drive the implementation thereof, the leadership team chose to embark on this journey regardless for the following reasons:
- Driving meaningful and intentional action with regards to sustainability is firmly aligned to their purpose
- Empact Group were already taking action in many sustainability related areas and therefore wanted to consolidate and formalise the plan and progress made
- Key stakeholders were also embarking on this journey and required an understanding of Empact Group’s sustainability position and direction
- The leadership team were aware of the opportunities to remain competitive by offering sustainable solutions to clients
Step Advisory, alongside our partners at Ince, facilitated a process with the leadership team to develop their first formal sustainability strategy. This process included a number of working sessions with the leadership team and other key stakeholders to increase buy in around the strategy and ensure a comprehensive plan was developed.
The engagement kicked off with the upskilling of the client team on the sustainability landscape and the playing back of research into the sustainability efforts of other global and local organisations within Empact Group’s sector (research performed by Step). This informed the development of an aspiration statement and the extraction of the top 5 sustainability related focus areas relevant to Empact Group (using a materiality analysis and prioritisation process).
Through a facilitated process, the medium to long term indicators of success for each focus area were identified, together with the initiatives that were currently taking place and ideas to implement the driving of progress were captured. Accountability for each objective was allocated to an Exco member, and the next steps were developed to drive traction.
Lastly, the newly developed sustainability strategy was packaged into a concise and engaging document to be presented to the Board.
This was the start of a longer sustainability journey on which Empact Group was embarking. The development of a succinct strategy provided direction and focus, with the process increasing the awareness of the leadership team. The team was able to effectively communicate their intentions to key stakeholders, and efforts have begun in the prioritised areas of the strategy.
