This journey started in early 2019 after a summer break spent walking in the Tasmanian wilderness. This lead to a new year’s resolution to engage the work team to do more to 'green the office'. Our office was far from paperless, we didn't put much effort into recycling, our old building was far from efficient, we spent an enormous amount on airlines… I could go on.
We set up a small team to look into what more we could do. Progress was slow - but in the right direction. And beyond the obvious, we didn't know what more we could do.
A year later, Covid hit and we embarked on a major research project to explore sustainable development - globally one of the three macro trends in the built environment, and thus a significant contributor to our work in skill development. This lead to a deep exploration of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and an understanding that ‘greening the office’ was a lot more than our environmental impact.
Being purposeful and driving impact from our journey cuts across all domains of the business including:
- governance mission and engagement; ethics and transparency
- workers financial security; health, wellness, and safety; career development; engagement and satisfaction
- community diversity, equity, and inclusion; economic impact; civic engagement and giving; supply chain management corporate social responsibility; human resources; procurement
- environmental management; air and climate; water; waste; sustainability; facilities and operations
- customer stewardship; sales and marketing; customer experience.
What we did was review all of these domains and reflected on what needed to change to be the change we sought. To conduct business for benefit.
Our journey has now arrived at its first important destination, with our certification as Tasmania’s first B Corp. Certified B Corporations® (B Corps™) are for-profit companies that use the power of business to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy. They meet the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
Certified B Corporations must earn a score of at least 80 points on the B Impact Assessment. Scores are verified through an external review process, which includes documentation, and audit. Our current score is 87.4 points – and we shall be working hard to improve this and ensure we continue this journey.
David Morgan CEO