Video transcript: Navigating sustainability

Transcript

Will Evison: We take a really value-focused approach to sustainability.

Tom Beagent: Lots of organisations have been seeing sustainability as a cost.

Pragya Jain: We've been working with organisations to help them rethink that.

We are linking sustainability to the big topics that the board is dealing with.

Tom: We see a lot of organisations that have set net zero commitments, not only because it is the right thing to be doing, but they know that for their business to be in existence for the long run, they need to get on board.

Pragya: Sustainability is looked at as a compliance topic with huge mandatory reporting requirements. But really, if you think about what is that data telling you, that data is essentially telling you, you need to think about a new product that's less carbon intensive, that actually you can take your cost out of business by just thinking about shifting from conventional sources of power to renewable sources of power. And it's also telling you that you need to realign your supply chain to really make your business more resilient.

Tom: he pressures that businesses feel around sustainability come from multiple different angles. At one end of the spectrum, you've got customers; consumers who are changing their expectations. Other end of the spectrum, you've got investors where you've got huge pools of capital that are looking to be invested in sustainable ways.

Will: So our clients are feeling real pressure around their energy bills. They've gone from being low and stable to being high and volatile.

Pragya: We've been talking to clients about achieving up to 30% reduction in their energy bills.

Will: We're working with a client in the food processing sector. Their biggest single cost line is energy. It's also their biggest source of emissions, and we're helping them figure out a strategy for how they can electrify their operations, reduce the costs of the electricity through self-generation and storage. And that has the potential to fundamentally reshape their business.

Tom: We worked with a very large grocer to help them think about their packaging, and think about how they can start to reduce the amount of packaging they use, change the types of packaging they use, and by doing that, taking significant cost out of the business.

Will: Technology runs throughout our sustainability services at PwC.

Tom: We have to be able to bring the latest data and analyse it in the fastest, most efficient way to bring the insights that our clients need.

Pragya: And it also helps in a huge way in terms of monitoring the progress that our clients are making.

Tom: What makes us different, though, is our ability to bring together a broad set of skills to this, whether that is looking at the regulatory and legal effects of sustainability, supply chain transformation, tax and the tax implications of decisions, or the general business transformation that's needed as you make a business more sustainable.

Pragya: I absolutely love working on the topic of sustainability. It is a very fast evolving space. It's huge, it's complex. But at the same time it is something that is real.

Tom: It's important that we're delivering the right outcomes for the environment and society, but we've got to do it in a way that makes businesses more successful.