The Sustainability Professionals Resilience Group (SPRG) is an innovative, international online community, bringing in-house business sustainability leaders together to discuss challenges, explore solutions and share ideas and expertise.
Want to become part of it?
Why join the Sustainability Professionals Resilience Group?
By becoming part of our online business sustainability community you’ll have the opportunity to meet with other senior sustainability professionals across the corporate and NFP/NGO sectors – once every month, for an hour per session.
If you sometimes feel like an isolated voice in your organisation, or if you’d value other perspectives on the challenges you face, SPRG is a welcoming community that will offer you:
- A mutually supportive collective of sustainability professionals in similar roles
- The chance to focus on the future and achieve your ambitions
- A platform to engage, connect and collaborate with experts from across the world
- A creative community where you can discuss and share challenges and ideas
- The support needed to increase personal and professional resilience
- The motivation to maintain and increase momentum
How does the professional sustainability group work?
An unparalleled opportunity to meet with business sustainability professionals from a breadth of sectors, locations and organisational roles, SPRG works to broaden perspectives and provide community members with insight from other dedicated experts across the globe.
Combining conceptual thought-leadership with practical and pragmatic solutions and applications, the only agenda is open dialogue and sustainability.
Here’s how our business sustainability group works…
A Featured Theme
Each session focuses on a featured sustainability theme, often with a guest contributor sharing an interesting, valuable and stimulating viewpoint.
Group Discussion
Meet other senior sustainability professionals and experts, ask each other questions, share and explore sustainability challenges and opportunities.
Trust & Share
We host small groups (max 12) and abide by the Chatham House Rule. While ideas are shared, personal identities are not and sessions aren’t recorded.
Free to Join
The only cost is your time. We just ask that you make as constructive a contribution as possible and commit to sharing your ideas and feedback.
Who?
Our SPRG meetings are reserved for sustainability professionals working in companies and charities – so if this is you, please join us !
When?
SPRG meetings are held online on the second Thursday of each month at 2pm (BST) and last for 1 hour.
Want to join us at our next business sustainability group meeting?
Sustainable Business Culture | 14th July 2022
Joss & Dominic | Terrafiniti, UK
As Peter Drucker once famously noted “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”.
Drucker perfectly illustrates the challenge that many of us interested in evolving business performance must wrestle with. Change happens not just because we have a plan, but because there is also fertile ground to support and drive that plan.
If you want to do things differently then you have to concentrate not just on the what of sustainable business, but on the why and how.
The concept of business culture is often misunderstood and hard to describe. It can be easily dismissed as difficult to define and even more difficult to change.
But if business culture can be strong enough to eat your strategy, then there is little point in spending time and effort on developing a new direction if you don’t pay equal, if not greater, attention to culture.
Join Dominic and Joss, from Terrafiniti, and other sustainability professionals from different companies and backgrounds on the 14th July to explore business culture and:
- How do you define and understand business culture?
- What makes ‘good’ culture?
- What management levers and processes are available to foster the ‘right’ culture?
What have people said about the group?
“thank you for this session! I feel more sane talking to you! :)"
“Probably the best thing I've clicked into in several years! "
“A sense of loneliness remains among sustainability experts - the resilience group addresses a serious need."
“Everyone was involved in the conversation and had the opportunity to contribute to the group dynamic.”
“Excellent size of group offering everyone the opportunity to reflect on the current situation. This made the group dynamic and incredibly insightful.”
“Your approach is the best way to shape a network of experts ready to help each other. This is invaluable!
What have we covered?
For the first meeting we were delighted to welcome Virginie Coulloudon, Executive Director at Your Public Value. She kicked off a fascinating and lively discussion among professionals from different sectors and ranging from Norway to the US and Australia.
In subsequent sessions we've explored Resilience and what that means for sustainability professionals and their businesses, Engaging with People in different roles on sustainability and Trust in business.
Virginie Coulloudon
Executive Director | Your Public Value, Berlin
On how Public Value is emerging as a driving force in corporate purpose across Europe and beyond.
Emma Burlow
Director & Head of Circular Economy | Resource Futures, Bristol
On the challenges of developing the Circular Economy and practical examples of the approach in action.
Roisin Reynolds
Managing Director | Ivydale Coaching, Singapore
On Moral Hazard in the Time of Coronavirus - why mitigating the impact of the pandemic in developing countries should be a priority.
Net Zero | 9th June 2022
Joss & Dominic | Terrafiniti, UK
Rising to the challenge of climate change is the single greatest task facing society and business this century.
Increasingly urgent warnings from the IPCC underline the importance of rapid and dramatic action.
As the agenda receives greater attention, we increasingly see businesses talking about Net-Zero carbon. The more meaningful responses include public declarations about their intentions and clear and transparent targets.
But the landscape is unclear.
Net Zero is confusing and complicated, terms are not well defined and there are few standards.
Sustainability and Competitive Strategy | 12th May 2022
Joss & Dominic | Terrafiniti, UK
Increasing requirements to disclose sustainability performance, together a greater focus upon green washing, mean that alignment between core business, market positioning and sustainability can no longer be avoided.
Putting sustainability at the heart of your company’s commercial proposition is an essential part of developing and embedding sustainability and creating long-term value.
Doughnut Economics and Enterprise Design | 14th April 2022
Erinch Sahan | Business & Enterprise Lead, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, UK (rescheduled)
Doughnut Economics aims to set a new compass for human prosperity, but what does it mean for business?
A thriving economy needs businesses that have regenerative and distributive practices and impacts in the world. To achieve this, Doughnut Economics Action Lab is focusing on ways to promote ideas of enterprise design that can unlock and enable these practices, support leadership in their commitment to sustainability and secure the businesses purpose over the long-term. This session will provide an overview of Doughnut Economics and explore ways businesses can reflect on their own design in line with the ideas of Doughnut Economics, including through their purpose, how they're networked and governed, and crucially how they are owned and financed.
Leading beyond authority - to influence change | 10th February 2022
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Being a successful sustainability specialist in an organisation can be a lonely, difficult and sometimes frustrating role. Achieving meaningful sustainability goals almost always requires change and this is rarely straightforward or easy.
Depending upon circumstances, sustainability managers/directors will need to employ different levers for change, but these are often beyond their direct control.
In addition, they will be responsible for the development of ambition and programmes that can only be successful with the buy in and support of others, often in more senior roles.
Leading beyond authority is crucial to extend your impact and influence, but it can be difficult to describe and put into action.
Sustainable Transition – what is it & what needs to change to make happen? | 13th January 2022
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Awareness of the pressing importance of current environmental damage and social challenges has fast moved from specialism to wider general recognition.
Our economic and industrial system has delivered many global benefits but too often at a high cost to our environment and to other people.
The transition to sustainability will require major shifts in industry, society and government. We need to reevaluate and re-design sustainable modes of production and consumption.
The WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), among others, has highlighted the main strategic goals required for Sustainable Value Transition; managing for the Long-term, societal & stakeholder Value Creation, remaining within Planetary Boundaries and developing Transition thinking and Pathways.
But for many people and companies this looks more than daunting and raises several important questions so we kicked off 2022 looking for some answers.
Priorities and Goals for 2022 | 9th December 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
At this time of year, it’s common to take stock and think of what you want to achieve in the coming year.
But while it’s traditional to make often vague and unsupported personal resolutions we know that SPRG members take a super professional approach at work and that clear goals are a vital part of sustainability best practice.
What does that mean for you in 2022?
What are your major sustainability obstacles? | 11th November 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Being an effective sustainability professional is rarely straightforward and frequently challenging.
It often feels like a herculean task, just when you’ve fixed one thing another obstacle pops up.
Typical obstacles can include finding answers to technical issues (perhaps how do I calculate Scope 3 emissions or select lower risk suppliers) but more often relate to people and/or organisational issues – and behavioural / mind set related challenges are more complex and less likely to be fixed quickly or neatly.
Can standards deliver a sustainable world? | 14th October 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Standards are a key tool in sustainability management – but just how effective are they for delivering the change we need?
Standards are developed for two main reasons:
1. To follow established or emerging practice - because something is already happening, and it is considered mainstream enough to be codified into standard practice;
2. To lead and drive change - because something is not happening that people think ought to happen and therefore a standard is developed to encourage it.
But just how effective are standards in driving the change we need, and can a standard ever be an effective proxy for trust?
Will it be consensus-based standards that drive change, or individual leadership and innovation which is always, ultimately going to change the world?
In this session we looked at the positives and negatives of sustainability standards, explore the differences between prescriptive and principles-based approaches and discuss just what is useful for achieving more sustainable practice in your organisations.
Minimum consensus - do we have to agree about everything to get stuff done? | 9th September 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Humans appear hard wired to disagree with each other.
We have evolved to look for differences, to spot people not from our ‘tribes’ or those whose appearance, behaviours or opinions are different to what we know and think we can trust.
In addition, finding points of disagreement can often be a way of demonstrating our insight and expertise, polishing our own egos at the expense of constructive change.
But how useful is this when we need coordination and shared focus to tackle the big, complex challenges of sustainability?
In this session we explored how to identify just how little we might need to agree on in order to get stuff done.
Is 2021 the year that materiality comes of age?| 13th May 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Materiality is the key difference between a weak sustainability strategy/approach, and one based on logic and planning. But is 2021 the year that materiality takes a front seat?
Maybe, but probably not – because while the concept is simple, it’s so often misunderstood.
Blackrock Chairman, Larry Fink, has been pushing the need for directional change for several years now, but so far it’s failed to bridge the yawning gap between intention and company performance.
So what’s the problem?
For most companies, materiality tends to reside in the realm of reporting, rather than in demonstrating how their strategies address material issues. Yet investors are incredibly interested in material issues, in order to identify the current limits on enterprise value creation caused by impacts upon:
- Stakeholders
- The environment
- Society
In this SPRG meeting, we shared our thoughts and ideas around essential questions including:
- What issues are likely to be material for you and your business?
- What can we learn from new takes on materiality?
- What’s happening and who’s interested?
Ethics - What’s the moral dimension of your business case? | 15th April 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
There’s an ethical vacuum within the sustainability landscape primed for businesses to occupy. With this in mind, is it time to look a little deeper at the moral aspects behind your activities?
We’ve seen corporate sustainability evolve and mature over the past two decades. Where there was once just a loose focus on ‘doing the right thing’, we’ve now moved towards a more concrete business case, with activities that relate to measurable, instrumental aspects, such as reduced waste, efficiencies, added value, reduced risks and financial out-performance.
But what about ethics?
Of course sustainability has always had a strong ethical dimension at heart, including legacy, equity and equality – but we’re still facing an environmental crisis, along with a crisis in trust towards businesses.
In the conversation we shared ideas on:
- How we can fill this ethical vacuum
- Whether we should be aiming to do so
- How we could/should approach moral challenges
Sustainability and business value | 11th March 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
It’s 2021 are people still looking at the business case for sustainability?
There is no single business case. But there will be one for every business.
It’s a key component for moving forward in some form, whether it’s explicitly formalised or takes the form of persuading key decision makers to engage with the agenda.
Sustainability is an increasingly explicit element of how people judge and define their relationships towards companies, notably through perceptions of risk.
In many sectors it’s also clear that more sustainable companies are financially outperforming others.
You might not need a formal business case, but you need clarity on how sustainability contributes to business value to align action and strength-en strategy.
Does your company help make the world a better place? | 25th February 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Simply making money is no longer seen as sufficient by many - demonstrating purpose and social value is increasingly important
The World Economic Forum, among others, is promoting “Stakeholder Capitalism”, with a focus on companies playing a positive role in solving global challenges and reducing inequality.
BlackRock’s (the world’s largest asset manager) Larry Fink, in his latest letter to CEOs, noted:
“The more your company can show its purpose in delivering value to its customers, its employees, and its communities, the better able you will be to compete and deliver long-term, durable profits for shareholders.”
Demonstrating purpose beyond profit is gathering momentum through concrete approaches to measuring social impact, and more significantly companies starting to put responsiveness and social duty into their legal responsibilities through initiatives such as B-Corp.
For example, Danone has recently achieved B-Corp certification of twenty-eight of its entities representing over 45% of Danone’s global sales.
But what’s at the heart of all this?
Below the level of the structured, detailed (and sometimes rather complicated) approaches of Shared Value and B Corps we believe that there is a fundamental and simple question about the social utility of an enterprise:
“Is the world a better place because we exist?”.
Towards 9 Billion | 28th January 2021
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
There’s a recognition that a great transition is needed. But what ideas do we need to make it happen?
The seeds of hope and of rejuvenation lie all around us.
Terrafiniti’s Towards 9 Billion is a positive vision for a sustainable future, a future based upon abundance, vitality and balanced economic relationships.
•What if we could welcome rather than fear the arrival of the coming billions of inhabitants to this planet?
•What opportunities would this provide for markets, businesses and citizens?
•What would be the central elements of transformation and how might we build a system that works for all?
Common Good and Profit: Public Value Principles for Sustainable Business | 14th January 2021
Virginie Coulloudon | Executive Director Your Public Value, Berlin
Maria del Peso | Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board, Your Public Value, Berlin
Join us for the first meeting of 2021.
After nine months of dialogue and co-creation with 124 European experts in sustainability and good governance, the Berlin-based NGO Your Public Value has launched nine Public Value Principles© for Sustainable Business.
This initiative is an attempt to shape consensus around agreed principles -not KPIs or standards! - to define modern accountability and place sustainability at the core of business strategies. Virginie and Maria will present these principles before we open for a discussion on sustainability and modern governance.
Who chooses sustainability? | 10th December 2020
Ben Jeffery | Refresco Beverages UK
Sustainability is about doing things differently or doing very different things. And that means making choices, often different choices to those made in the past. But who should be making them?
Where should the buck stop and how do we deliver sustainable outcomes?
Drawing upon his experience working on the front line in different companies, Ben talked about the role of consumer freedom, choices and environmental impact.
Strategy Development | 26th November 2020
Jono Ayton | Willmott Dixon, UK
Jono talked us through Willmott Dixon’s ambitious new sustainability strategy - 'Now or Never' - focusing on driving fundamental business transformation in the context of sustainability challenges.
Next Big Risks? | 12th November 2020
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
What are the next big risks with sustainability aspects?
In this session we looked at how we assess what's important and explored:
- What risks are on your mind?
- Is there a gap between perception & ‘reality’?
- How much ‘data’ are needed to drive risk assessments?
Riding the Tiger | 22nd October 2020
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
How do sustainability professionals use public opinion?
Those of us who have been working in sustainability for longer than we may wish to dwell upon will be familiar with operating against the tide. Sustainability was a minority activity without broad popular support.
This is now very much changed and now supports arguments relating to market values and building a commercial business case.
As sustainability practitioners how do we navigate these turbulent waters, how do we ride the tiger of public sentiment – and what if we need to get off?
Sustainability Myths | 8th October 2020
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
Every industry has its myths. Sometimes these are harmless, but more often they can undermine understanding and slow progress...
- Which are the myths you come across most often?
- To what extent do they hold back efforts in sustainability?
- What are the most appropriate and effective ways to dispel them in a world of fake news?
Social Audit in the time of Pandemic | 24th September 2020
DARIA TOSCHI | Sustainable Procurement Expert | Baltixx Consulting, Brisbane
While not a perfect tool, social audits can provide a meaningful role in protecting workers' rights. The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on social auditing and the visibility of workers and working conditions has plummeted as audits have become impossible. How have companies, NGOs and service providers responded and where should we go next?
Greenwashing | 10th September 2020
Dominic & Joss | Terrafiniti, UK
With an increased focus on social and environmental issues making misleading claims about sustainability performance has become commonplace. While reputable organisations work to avoid this it can be useful and interesting to explore the different shades of greenwash, how they arise and how to best avoid them.