Daisy’s environmental social and governance (ESG) journey started when the senior team agreed that our efforts to do good by the planet and people made sound business sense too.
We had ambitions to improve our community, attack our net zero targets head on and run our business ethically, as well as profitably. We could also see how customers might like to join us on our journey.
Our ESG strategy is based on three main areas:
- Addressing the new challenges of formal governance
- Meeting very ambitious net zero targets
- Our community, and charity projects, and colleague wellbeing
How are we acting on our ESG goals?
Firstly, our thriving public sector business gave us challenges set by the government. These include keeping the supply chain clean and ethical, meeting modern slavery assessments, and achieving sustainability goals and carbon reduction.
This gave us a framework to start changing our habits, and we decided to go straight for the top by signing the UN Global Compact Statement, and identifying our sustainability development goals (SDGs).
We now have a set of “Daisy Roots” which guide our strategy, and we have robust plans under-pinned by formal governance. This set of measurements means we can be judged against forthcoming Science Based Targets, our Ecovadis assessments and the Crown Commercial Service Carbon Reduction plans. We will also be completing the NHS Evergreen Sustainable Supplier Assessment in January 2024.
The good news is that we are on course to reach our Carbon Net Zero Scope 1 and 2 a year earlier than planned in 2025/26, – due in no small part to our 100% renewable energy power, gas heating replacement pilots, and a dedicated and enthusiastic facilities team!
The work we have done on identifying and understanding all 15 categories of our Scope 3 emissions has paved the way for our service to customers whereby we can actively reduce their emissions, and advise on sustainability by design and, circularity in all its forms. Circularity will be the single most important factor for our customers when it comes to reducing the impact of their IT operations. We will be challenging them to embrace these concepts along with us.
Our work on measuring our Scope 3: Purchased Goods and Services, and Scope 3: Use of Sold Products has led to several new workstreams for developing a customer facing reporting tool for these categories. As well as new packaged solutions, aligned to helping our customers achieve their own reductions in Scope 3: Purchased Goods and Services.
In addition, we have been working with customers to advise on how they can reduce their own Scope 3 emissions outside of the products and services Daisy provides. All customers have a different Scope 3 emission inputs/profile and often information and communications technology is not a large part of their footprint.
But technology, in particular Internet of Things (IoT) devices, can often help to drive efficiencies throughout the businesses for many customers. For Daisy this is a critical part of our journey to act as an ESG multiplier outside our own organisation.
A holistic approach
Today our ESG approach is ingrained throughout our organisation, and all of our colleagues have the chance to contribute. This is because it is clear that sustainability will be part of every aspect of our business within a very few years.
We have found the biggest challenge to date is the lack of information on elements of the supply chain and we will be pushing our suppliers and vendors to standardise the data which enables the impact of IT to be properly understood and compared. We have created calculation models to bridge that gap in the short term as we need to help our customers to make the correct choices
As for our thriving social initiatives, they go from strength to strength. We have pledged nearly a quarter of a million pounds to good causes in the last year. This includes our sponsorship of the Rainbow Girlguiding recycling badge and continuing our work as a STEM learning Enthuse partner. We also hire football pitches for charity fund raising colleague matches and have recently become a member of The Big Goal, a new initiative supporting The Soccer Street Foundation, to help them tackle youth homelessness.
Additionally, every week our Daisy canteen provides hundreds of hot meals in the Lancashire area, an idea which started during the pandemic for much needed local support and continues today in multiple deprived areas for vulnerable groups. Every Daisy employee has three days given to them to volunteer within the local community and in the first six months of this year over 1,000 days had been used – our target for next year is to use even more.
One more significant programme is our involvement in setting up a new Kelp Farm in Scotland, as we predict Blue Carbon is going to be the new ‘Plant a Tree’ approach to sustainability. The use of retired salmon farms means jobs in the local community are secured in places where its most needed.
Our ESG journey has already led to numerous positive changes for our businesses and helped us to inform and guide our customers. With plenty more to come, watch this space!