Strategy & management services

We provide sustainability consulting services in three main areas; strategy, management and performance & best practice. These are delivered in two ways. Firstly, through strategic advice and consultancy based upon international best practice experience, information gathering and analysis, and the production of reports with clear priorities and recommendations. Secondly, we specialise in using interactive approaches including workshops and other participative processes to involve people from the business. This builds staff capacity and capabilities and also engages them in creating solutions that work.

Operational strategy

We have extensive experience of supporting organisations to develop operational strategies to embed the principles of sustainability within business processes including procurement, product development, R & D and communications. We believe that more sustainable business practice should not require you to develop new processes and that often existing approaches can be simply evolved to deliver against sustainability priorities. We work with you to understand how to combine sustainability and business priorities to ensure integrated, creative and innovative responses.

Business strategy

Corporate strategy is the distilled essence of a company, expressing its fundamental purpose and intent. One of the main barriers to gaining profile and positive institutional investment for sustainability activities is that established programmes of CSR, environmental management or sustainability are generally run in parallel to the development of mainstream business strategy. As a result they do not define/influence strategic direction, or, more crucially, influence mainstream investment decisions. To fully reflect and benefit from the opportunities presented by changing environmental and social trends and priorities it is becoming vital for organisations to integrate sustainability issues and intent at a strategic level.

We work with companies to understand the environmental and social trends and issues that have strategic implications, presenting sources of threat and opportunity. Our work has focussed specifically upon the development of transformational strategies, supporting the development of corporate strategies which truly reflect and capitalise upon changing environmental and social trends within the context of risk and opportunity.

Sustainability strategy – Next Generation Sustainability

Sustainability strategy requires the development of appropriate objectives and targets for the assessment and management of material (important to stakeholders and the company as a whole) environmental and social issues. We have developed Next Generation Sustainability to provide a stretching and systematic approach to sustainability management within companies. It focusses upon the identification and management of environmental and social impacts - enhancing the positive and minimising the negative aspects of business practice impacts in the context of achieving and demonstrating an overall positive benefit.

Products & services

Strategy development

Good strategy provides the basis for good business decisions. Strategies that support successful and innovative companies will be those tuned to fast moving environmental and social issues which present new sources of threat and opportunity. We have experience in both the theory and practice of sustainable strategy development and have supported a number of leading organisations to understand and respond to the strategic challenges of sustainability.

Scenario and sustainability futures management

What do sustainability trends mean for the future of your business? Scenario planning presents a range of pictures of what the future might be like and provides the opportunity to reflect upon the implications for business models and practice. We draw upon a range of scenario sources to support organisations in exploring possible futures and to identify the opportunities for achieving success.

Sustainability benchmarking and assessment

How do your sustainability activities compare with your peers and competitors, what are your existing strengths and what are the key opportunities for future development? Drawing upon our extensive experience with best practice approaches, standards and initiatives, we have developed structured analysis tools, checklists and guidance processes to analyse and locate your practice relative to your peers and to the principles of sustainability. We can work with you to identify best practice, develop appropriate responses to key challenges, and communicate your work to employees and stakeholders.

Value chain analysis

Effective sustainability increasingly requires management up and down the value chain. The ability to understand and influence the positive and negative impacts that arise through the whole life cycle of your products and services is becoming a requirement of demonstrating responsibility and delivering business benefits. We use conceptual models and approaches to assist you in analysing the environmental and social dimensions of your whole value chain, understanding impacts and boundary issues and driving innovation through your business relationships.

Sustainability management systems

While there is a plethora of best practice approaches, indicator sets and guidance, there are no globally recognised standards. We think that many approaches are too complicated or confusing to support business management priorities. We believe that, at its heart, sustainability management is simple. It requires a focus on the right things in the right order with the right level of ambition. As a result we have developed a scalable management system approach, which builds from a number of key stages to allow you to identify, prioritise, manage and communicate your sustainability performance.

Experience

The Acorn Project, BS 8555

Joss Tantram was a Director of this project, a UK public funded initiative to develop a staged environmental management system, based upon the principles of ISO 14001. It gave rise to the British Standard BS 8555 in 2003. See more >>

BS 8900; Guidance for Managing Sustainable Development

A British Standard to support organizations in responding to sustainability, the standard was launched in 2006 and was the world's first such standard. Joss Tantram was part of the British Standards Institution Steering Group responsible for its development. See more >>

ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Standard

Released in Autumn 2010, ISO 26000 is the world's first guidance standard for social responsibility. Joss Tantram is a member of BSI Technical Committee SDS/1 which acted as the UK representative body in the global ISO development process. See more >>

To Whose Profit? series

At WWF-UK, Joss Tantram was responsible for the conception and development of this publication, in conjunction with Cable & Wireless plc, of To Whose Profit?: Building a Business Case for Sustainability, which has become a source book for practitioners in companies to develop internal business cases for sustainability. Joss was also co-author of the companion piece, To Whose Profit?(ii) - Evolution: Building Sustainable Corporate Strategy, published in March 2004. The report was developed with input from Aviva plc, Barclays, BP, BT, Marks and Spencer, Severn Trent, KPMG and Henley Management School, together with recognised experts in corporate strategy, investment, financial analysis and corporate change. It provides innovative guidance for sustainability practitioners to understand how sustainable corporate strategy can create value and competitive advantage – making sustainability a key part of the boardroom agenda.

Aviva Plc CSR committee

Joss Tantram was for seven years a member of Aviva plc's CSR Committee. A high level committee supporting senior management and the board of one of the world's largest insurance companies, it provided advice, stakeholder feedback and development guidance to the company. See more >> (See P15 in PDF).

Norwich Union (now Aviva UK) Corporate Responsibility Assessment

The UK's largest insurance company, part of one of the world's biggest insurance groups, contracted us to analyse, review and assess its approach to sustainability. We developed a comprehensive report with an overall best practice assessment, gap analysis, development opportunities and tools to integrate CR into business practice.

IKEA sustainability strategy workshop

Working with WWF International, we designed and delivered a strategy workshop with IKEA to analyse and develop IKEAs sustainability strategy focussing upon key areas of risk and opportunity.

WWF International One Planet Leaders

Between 2005-10 we developed and delivered this programme (in conjunction with ESD Consulting Ltd). At its core it supports a strategic transformative approach to sustainability. We developed extensive tools and models to support strategic development, including a groundbreaking electronic sustainability management system which was designed based upon our experience of global best practice and innovation. The programme was delivered to many of the world's largest companies. See more >>