A presentation by Joss Tantram of Terrafiniti to the SSA/SEED Policy Forum at Baden Powell House, London on 26th April 2012.

1. “Building Business Capacity in
Sustainability”
Joss Tantram
Partner, Terrafiniti LLP
“ESD in the UK and its role in Sustainable Living”
SSA/SEED Policy Forum. Baden Powell House, 26th April 2012
Making business sense of sustainability

2. Discussion overview
• Sustainability and the skills agenda
• Strategic sustainability - a skills gap?
• Tools
• Taking a strategic approach
Making business sense of sustainability

3. “Humans were being overwhelmed by their
sophisticated machinery, because the intelligence
required to build a certain level of technology was
less than needed to survive it.”
Stephen Baxter
Making business sense of sustainability

4. Sustainability and the skills agenda
• Does sustainability need special skills?
• Sustainability deals in interaction and
interdependencies, probability and implications.
• Sustainability deals in detail but also the big
picture – these require differing approaches.
• Sustainability requires comfort with uncertainty
and the application of precautionary
approaches.
Making business sense of sustainability

5. Strategic sustainability - a skills gap?
• Leading companies are starting to identify long
term sustainability ambitions:
• Unilever – Sustainable Living plans to halve the
environmental footprint of products and
manufacture by 2020.
• Elopak – Futureproof 2020 to have 100%:
carbon neutral, renewable, recycled products by
2020.
• Puma – in 2011 produced first ever corporate
Environmental Profits and Loss accounts.
Making business sense of sustainability

6. Strategic sustainability - a skills gap?
• Companies with sustainability ambitions have
sustainability skills needs:
• The HR function – the natural home for identifying
and filling skills gaps and competencies
requirements.
• However, sustainability is a strategic priority - in
many companies HR is not a strategic function – it is
too often sidelined, as is sustainability.
• Organisations struggle with different futures and
therefore struggle to envisage the future skills they
will require.
Making business sense of sustainability

7. Tools
• There are a number of approaches towards identifying and
closing the skills gap:
• Skills maps: IEMA www.iema.net/skills
• Sectoral approaches: www.homebuildingskills.com
• CSR for HR – gathering momentum www.csrfrohr.com
Making business sense of sustainability

8. • There are a number of approaches towards identifying
and closing the skills gap:
• Skills maps: IEMA www.iema.net/skills
• Sectoral approaches: www.homebuildingskills.com
• CSR for HR – gathering momentum
www.csrfrohr.com
Making business sense of sustainability

9. Taking a strategic approach
• Companies taking a meaningful approach treat sustainability
like any other issue which has strategic implications for the
company. This would involve:
• Identifying staff requiring in-depth competency
development and staff requiring awareness/ orientation
training;
• Identifying existing internal expertise;
• Identifying external sources of training and support;
• Link sustainability performance and financial performance;
• Include sustainability in personal development plans.
Making business sense of sustainability

10. Contact and more expertise...
Email: joss@terrafiniti.com
Towards 9 Billion Blog: www.terrafiniti.com/blog
Making business sense of sustainability