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Carbon verification is quickly becoming a necessary step for many businesses, whether due to regulatory compliance, market demand or as part of a voluntary scheme.

The drivers for this demand are varied, as is the approach many take for their path towards carbon verification. This can look very different depending on the industry you operate in and can be difficult to tackle for more service based industries, such as today's guest, Davies Group, who are a service provider for the insurance industry.

In this episode Mel is joined by Gillie Fairbrother, Global Responsible Business Officer at Davies Group, to discuss the findings of Mel's thesis regarding the demand and drivers of GHG verification for organisations across the globe, and how Davies Groups' carbon verification journey factors into the findings.

You'll learn

· Who is Gillie Fairbrother and who are Davies Group?

· What factor triggered the decision for independent carbon verification at Davies Group?

· At what point did the leadership team recognise that unverified carbon data represented a credibility and governance risk that was inconsistent with that professional standard?

· What did Davies Group's GHG inventory and reporting look like before independent verification was introduced?

· Which specific stakeholders were asking the hardest questions about Davies Group's sustainability data, and how did those questions land internally?

·

· What is the gap between organisations knowing they should verify emissions and actually doing it?

· Was competitive positioning part of the Davies Group case for carbon verification?

· What was the most significant finding from the first carbon verification engagement?

· How has verification changed the internal culture and engagement with the sustainability programme at Davies Group?

· How have Davies Group supported suppliers with calculating their carbon emissions?

· Where does Gillie see the expectations of institutional partners and large clients in insurance and professional services heading?

· What was a specific moment where Gillie can recall that this mattered more than she had expected?

Resources

· Davies Group

· Davies Group LinkedIn

· Carbonology – Carbon Verification Services

In this episode, we talk about:

[00:30] Episode Summary – We introduce Gillie Fairbrother, Global Responsible Business Officer at Davies Group, to discuss their participation in Mel's thesis research into the demand for GHG emissions, exploring Davies Group's own reasoning and journey.

[02:05] Who is Gillie Fairbrother and who are Davies Group? A route into sustainability as a career wasn't as readily available to Gillie when she attended university, so it has been something of a self-made path.

She has previously run a wellness business in the past and has experience working with sustainable brands and has done a lot of cultural advocacy, particularly in the LGBTQ space.

Taking the lead for ESG within the corporate space was a dream come true for Gillie, and she has done this for a number of US based tech firms to her current position for Davies Group.

Davies Group are a service provider for the insurance industry, who operate in 22 countries.

[03:40] What factor triggered the decision for independent carbon verification at Davies Group? Mel's research found that 29% of organisations cite market-driven factors as their primary reason for seeking GHG verification, compared with just 12% who cite regulatory compliance.

For Davies Group, their decision was led by market demand. They looked client requests versus client contractual obligations, and carbon verification was increasingly coming up in those contractual obligations.

Gillie herself has always been an advocate for working both sustainably and responsibly, promoting the revenue benefits that can be gained from doing so. However, as much as it is perceived to be the right thing to do, she doesn't want businesses to simply think of it as the 'nice thing to do'.

These should be central components to how your business operates. So in part, Davies Group saw this demand not only in the market, but as simply the right way to do business.

[05:30] At what point did the leadership team recognise that unverified carbon data represented a credibility and governance risk that was inconsistent with that professional standard? Davies Group already operate in a highly regulated market, and so already have very strong governance practices in place.

Gillie didn't really have to worry about making too many improvements in the governance or purpose aspects of ESG compliance.

They participated in TCFD on a voluntary basis to highlight a possible risk from a climate perspective that could affect things like supply chain, physical sites, or the industry in general to leadership.

Thankfully, the leadership saw this as a risk worth looking into more, and were willing to quantify it properly and ensure that their data was as accurate as possible and in a place where it could be audited by a 3^rd party.

[07:40] What did Davies Group's GHG inventory and reporting look like before independent verification was introduced? Before Gillie joined, these aspects were managed by a 3^rd party due to lack of in-house expertise to manage it.

When Gillie joined, she worked closely with that 3^rd party to continue the work. Davies Group is quite a complex business, it operates with 3 different divisions that have multiple service lines.

At the time, they did their best with the Excel spreadsheets that they had create to track various GHG emissions, but it was not as good as it could have been.

They've since grown their processes, included more in-house talent and are doing more to gain knowledge from their stakeholders, data owners and building relationships with various teams across the business.

While they are still working on Excel spreadsheets, they have advanced to reasonable assurance. Gillie is now looking into external tools to help improve their data management, but this would cost a fair bit of money that could be better used currently on reducing environmental impact.

[10:30] Which specific stakeholders were asking the hardest questions about Davies Group's sustainability data, and how did those questions land internally? Gillie cites employees, as they're an industry where 30% of the workforce is likely going to retire in the next 10 years, so they're trying to attract a younger group of talent who want to work for a business that has a good purpose and is a good company. Acting sustainably and responsibly is a huge part of attracting that new young talent.

The second more important stakeholders are their clients. Davies Group is a private equity backed business, if they're not making money then they simply cease to exist as a business. Clients now have a keen interest in responsibly run businesses, and many now seek proof to claims.

Next in the list is investors, who have an interest in the regulatory requirements that the business is subjected to.

Lastly, Gillie cites suppliers as even if they aren't actively putting pressure on the business to report their emissions, without their support and cooperation, Davies Group can't meet their own goals.

[12:40] What was a particularly memorable conversation with a Stakeholder that helped drive further improvement? Gillie recalls one conversation with a new employee where they asked to be more involved with their sustainability group.

When she talked to them more, she discovered that one of the main reasons that employee sought them out was due to the responsible business page on their website, and that out of the 3 businesses they were applying to, Davies Group was the only one that had a page like that.

[37:00] What is the gap between organisations knowing they should verify emissions and actually doing it? Mel's research found that 86% of organisations report increased stakeholder demand for transparency in GHG reporting – yet 52% remain unverified.

Gillie states that there could be a lot of reasons for this, including budget, resourcing or something as simple as a piece of wording in a contract where a client might say we request versus we require.

This is why Gillie is always in conversation with clients, whether that be the sales team or the sustainability teams at our clients, to understand their goals and make sure they can all align in their goals.

The market is certainly the leading cause for many businesses as Government regulation tends to lag behind.

[17:20] Was competitive positioning part of the Davies Group case for carbon verification? For Davies Group, it was initially a contractual requirement to complete their carbon verification. So, in their case, it was an easy decision as otherwise they could potentially lose business.

However, Gillie also regularly meets with senior leadership and reports into their responsible business board committee every quarter. There they consider the growing appetite for sustainability driven demands, and how they want to leading the way in their industry. The key determining factor is whether it's relevant to them, whether that's for sustainability or for their community impact strategy.

Davies Group tend to focus on education and investment in our communities, as that's where their expertise sits. It's all about materiality as businesses need to focus on what's relevant to them.

[19:20] What was the most significant finding from the first carbon verification engagement? For Gillie, it was the clarity and transparency that had been game changing. Especially within their real estate portfolio.

Davies Group don't own any of their offices, they're all leased. As they calculated and verified the carbon footprint, the quality of the data got better and that enabled them to have better conversations with their real estate team to understand how a building worked, whether it be a lease, including services or whether it be separate.

As a result, they've been able to set a renewable energy target for all UK offices.

[19:20] How has verification changed the internal culture and engagement with the sustainability programme at Davies Group? Mel's research identifies a strong correlation between verification status and organisational confidence, with 85% of verified organisations expressing pride in their sustainability progress, compared with 50% of unverified ones.

Gillie's been writing the sustainability report for Davies Group for the past 6 years, and she can feel the difference after having their emissions verified as it adds an extra layer of credibility.

She's also wary of stepping into bragging territory about all their sustainability achievements, without reflecting on the reality. There can be a conflict between writing what the stakeholders want to hear versus what is accurate and true.

Having independent 3^rd party verification gives you the confidence to back any claims made.

[24:10] How have Davies Group supported suppliers with calculating their carbon emissions? Gillie is particularly proud of an industry wide collaboration project that had close to 100 SMEs go through a Net Zero training programme that was provided by a third party.

Gillie joined many of the sessions and was so pleased to see sustainability champions emerge through the process where people suddenly got really invested and starting asking rather complex questions.

They're still gathering feedback from those sessions, but already 80% - 90% have calculated a starting carbon footprint and put in place an action plan to help reduce their impact.

This year, Davies Group have also kicked off a huge training and engagement plan with their service delivery teams who are making the decisions about their suppliers.

They've also engaged with over 400 employees in their UK groups for property claims on sustainable solutions, getting their ideas, understanding the challenges and coming out with some outcomes so they can measure the carbon of their claims process and look to reduce it. Gillie teases the pending results, so keep an eye on their socials to find out more!

[27:50] Key advice from Gillie: Focus your supply chain effort on your biggest emissions rather than your biggest spend, and tackle this in small groups.

[29:30] Where does Gillie see the expectations of institutional partners and large clients in insurance and professional services heading – and at what point does she think verified GHG data becomes a non-negotiable baseline in your market? Many businesses have been waiting on legislation and regulations to point the way, and in a sense, they will always be waiting as these things develop with our understanding and technology available.

However, businesses have done a good job of stepping up as those regulations lag behind.

There's a lot of mixed press regarding sustainability, with some professionals feeling as if the topic has come off the boil as article cite the loss of dedicated sustainability officers. The reality on the ground is that these roles are now much more embedded into the business, they're not being removed, simply passed onto roles such as the Chief Operating Officer to ensure sustainability targets are being met.

The bottom line is that the momentum for sustainability isn't going away, and that need to verify emissions is only going to grow. The key thing now is to move on from simple calculation into action, which is what Gillie is trying to drive right now.

[32:05] What was a specific moment where Gillie can recall that this mattered more than she had expected? Gillie is so proud of what their small and mighty team at Davies Group has done for their social impact.

When initially established, they were only in 1 country, they've now expanded to 22 countries and they've really focused their resources, time and effort on impacting community education and skills development, which she anticipates will have a full circle around to attracting talent into our industry.

To see more about the impacts that Davies Group are orchestrating, check out their LinkedIn page.

If you'd like any assistance with your carbon verification journey, contact our partner Carbonology, they'd be happy to help!

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#251 Driving The Demand For GHG Emissions - How Davies Group Tackled Carbon Verification

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#251 Driving The Demand For GHG Emissions - How Davies Group Tackled Carbon Verification