Sustainability has held a firm spot near the top of the agenda for businesses across all sectors, despite the various challenges and distractions of the last few years, and almost all businesses now have sustainability strategies in place – but how are they progressing?
To help us better understand and support our clients, we’ve been exploring what the current sustainability landscape looks like – focusing on legislation, market challenges and the progress companies have made as they set out to reach their sustainability goals.
As part of this, we’ve conducted research with 201 C-Suite executives in the UK’s manufacturing sector to understand how advanced they are in their sustainability journeys, and what their current challenges are.
Here are 5 key takeaways from the research.
Sustainability has held a firm spot near the top of the agenda for businesses across all sectors, despite the various challenges and distractions of the last few years, and almost all businesses now have sustainability strategies in place – but how are they progressing?
To help us better understand and support our clients, we’ve been exploring what the current sustainability landscape looks like – focusing on legislation, market challenges and the progress companies have made as they set out to reach their sustainability goals.
As part of this, we’ve conducted research with 201 C-Suite executives in the UK’s manufacturing sector to understand how advanced they are in their sustainability journeys, and what their current challenges are.
Here are 5 key takeaways from the research.
01
While sustainability remains a high priority, many businesses still feel behind on their strategy.
27%
of companies (27%) still think their sustainability strategy hasn’t reached the necessary level of maturity…
…despite nearly
63%
of them saying sustainability is a high priority for their business
02
The majority of businesses feel that the Net Zero targets they have set may not be achievable.
70%
of respondents have set net zero by 2030 targets but about 2/3 of them aren’t totally sure they’ll achieve them
03
Although businesses are clear about what they want to achieve, measuring carbon emissions and identifying ways to reduce them remains a big challenge.
Even if 98% of businesses have Net Zero targets, less than
2/10
actually measure GHG Scope 1,2 and 3 (Net Zero boundary includes scope 3 emissions)
The primary business concern in regards to sustainability is the ability to identify carbon reduction initiatives, yet only
31%
of businesses are currently focusing their efforts in this area
04
Business are feeling the impact of external factors on their sustainability strategies.
82%
businesses report that various short term pressures have held up or affected their plans to achieve the net zero targets
05
Businesses still feel there are internal barriers to overcome in order to reduce carbon emissions.
1st
Board-level engagement
2nd
Resources and skillset
3rd
Budget
Next steps on your sustainability journey
It’s clear that as businesses progress through their sustainability journeys, new challenges and blockers are developing. Over the next few months, we’re going to be sharing insights as we work with our clients to overcome some of these challenges, and help them reduce their carbon emissions and meet net zero targets.
Got something to share? We’d love to hear more about your experience of managing a sustainability strategy. Get in touch here.
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