Position Green’s customers are an immense source of inspiration and knowledge and we are fortunate to get our daily dose through our various collaborations. One project that particularly sparked our interest lately is the service provider Coor’s Triple Bottom Line Follow-Up project. Its purpose emanated from the need of a follow-up and results analysis process pertaining to Coor’s sustainability goals – mirroring the high standards inherent in financial follow-up and analysis processes.

In this interview, Coor’s Group Sustainability Manager Hanna Cedervall shares her learnings from this data-driven project, what challenges were faced, results and success factors. Hanna also extends valuable advice to other companies aiming to complete a similar transition in their data-driven sustainability follow-up and analysis processes. Happy reading!

Please tell us about your Triple Bottom Line Follow-Up project! 

The idea is the achieve complete anchoring in terms of sustainability goal setting, where we make sure that we have the tools and processes in place to measure efficiently as well as the conditions necessary to properly analyse results. The project’s purpose is four-fold in terms of what capabilities need to be developed: 

1. visualise KPI’s
2. analyse data
3. ensure accuracy and transparency through robust follow-up methods
4. clearly defined management processes and routines

Stable processes surrounding financial KPI’s have been around for a long time. Through this project we’re making sure that we have equally robust follow-up and analysis processes pertaining to the two additional triple bottom line dimensions: social and environmental. Our social sustainability maturity level has been quite advanced and in this regard we have made some simple process adjustments. Our greatest challenge is the environmental dimension.

What KPI’s did you set and how did you approach identifying them?

Many of our financial and social KPI’s have stayed the same. We added to our environmental KPI’s specifically within calculation of greenhouse gas emissions in order to increase our capacity to follow-up and analyse data. Coor commenced the challenging but vital journey of mapping up our climate impact (including purchased services and goods) in 2019. One key take-away from this process was the realisation that emissions calculations needed fine tuning and data measuring had to be done on a continuous basis in order to identify what actions to take in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions as well as capturing the effect of actions executed. We follow up our emissions in scope 1, 2 and 3. Our primary focus is on our three service levels that stand for the largest share of emissions: food & beverage, property and facility management. In addition to capturing our emissions in absolute terms we also have the capability to identify where in the value chain our emissions arise. Our goal is to make data available to whoever is interested in seeing how different data measures are associated through an aggregated approach, facilitating analysis and strategic planning for Coor to deliver our services in a more sustainable manner. All KPI calculations are dependent on traceable, high quality data from our internal systems and suppliers.

How do you use Position Green in developing KPI’s?

Position Green’s ESG software mainly supports us in calculating our climate impact through their platform for data-driven sustainability, applying built-in emissions factors from data bases such as RISE Food Climate Database. In areas lacking established databases and where access to climate data is restricted due to a complex supply chain (such as facility management), Position Green in partnership with 2050 supports us in applying emission factors based on spend. This particularly pertains to sub-categories within our product and service offering purchased for our service delivery operations.

What internal response have you met in this project? 

To date we have only received positive feedback from our organisation. Through this project we will be better equipped to reflect on all aspects within our triple bottom line, harmonising follow-up of social, environmental and financial KPI’s. What stands out from an innovation perspective is that the project has made it possible for us to be transparent in reporting and analysing data pertaining to our climate impact. All organisational units and our customers are acutely aware of the critical state of our planet in regards to global warming. In our strategy towards 2025 Coor is significantly leveling up our sustainability approach to becoming sustainable in all business aspects. To successfully reach this goal we need reliable methods to measure and follow up our progress on each step of the journey. That being said, it hasn’t been easy prioritising which actions are most urgent based on their effect. Climate impact follow-up on this granular level puts us in the position where it is possible to target actions and processes to reduce Coor’s climate impact. In my view we are definitely on route to achieving our goals and we learn a lot along the way. The interest from our co-workers in finding out about calculation results and how to turn insights into actions has been very high.

Have you encountered any challenges in this project? If so, what challenges?

The greatest challenge to date has been the lack of emissions data pertaining to goods and services related to facility and property management, which resulted in us developing our own emission factors in collaboration with Position Green och 2050. The lack of transparent and quality assured emissions data is a challenge that we share with other organisations. We are hopeful that the Science Based Target initiative, which we aligned ourselves with during the spring of 2021, will be successful in influencing the global development of improved climate data.  

Moreover, it has been challenging in itself to explain how data – in particular climate data – can be applied to our business. High quality data and well developed databases for emission factors within scope 1, 2 and scope 3 for food & beverage allows for granular climate impact calculations based on purchased volumes of fuels, fuel types, energy consumption and purchased food. Associated actions targeted at reducing our climate impact from the beforementioned activities are hence reflected in the methods applied in climate calculations. To put it differently, if we decide to switch from one fuel type to another or one type of food to an alternative with lower climate impact, we can track the effect in our results analysis. Climate impact from facility and property management is based on spend, which implies that climate reducing initiatives are not always reflected in the final calculation. Hence, we have focused on identifying the most substantial emissions sources to set targeted actions and apply alternative progress follow-up methods. Despite being based on spend, which is inherently assumptions based, we’ve already managed to extract several insights. 

What is your advice to other companies planning a similar approach?

Start to follow-up your climate impact now if you’re not already doing so! We can’t afford to wait for the market to equip us with perfect data in order to measure and calculate impact. The more of us there are requesting accurate data from our suppliers, the faster the transition will be.  Analyses based on climate data is an excellent basis for action oriented decision making. Insights and learnings gained in the process are equally important. Last but not least, it is incredibly motivating and rewarding to be able to measure activities out in the organisation and identify the direct link towards our climate impact reducing efforts.

Many thanks Hanna for sharing this inspirational and well-executed project with us!