Everyday
Echoes

In the journey toward a sustainable future, it’s not just the grand milestones that matter, but the myriad of small everyday actions that together create waves of change.

Through a series of portraits and interviews, we bring to light the insightful stories of those who are driving trends within their organizations. Together, let’s make sure our everyday actions have a positive impact on tomorrow.

Systemic Thinking

Reporting for progress

Framework Simplicity

Purpose Alignment

Value-Driven Sourcing

Pragmatic Approaches to Decarbonization

Culture Shift

Making sustainability desirable, functional and long-lasting

Fostering a shared vision for tomorrow

Finance as a Catalyst

Getting to the roots of sustainability

Redefining sustainability

Driving sustainable change

CFOs for sustainability

Green leadership unleashed

United for progress

Powering sustainability through education and advocacy

Championing long-term sustainable action

Sowing seeds of impact

Conditions
for change

These series of stories have uncovered valuable lessons on how to drive organizational change. While every company and individual is on their own journey, there are common success factors across functions, industries, and geographies that drive change effectively. The five conditions for change represent the supportive environments and tools that enable change to happen and contribute towards creating a corporate culture of sustainability.

- Award employees for their engagement in sustainability
  
  Name: Mariko Yamada | Action: Internal | Industry: ICT
  Mariko also awards financial benefits to those who make significant contributions towards positive change, enabling them to drive their efforts even further. This is driven by a reporting system, enabling everyone to deepen their understanding of ESG. By transforming that process into a collaborative effort, it ensures that ESG is present throughout business functions and integrated in a truly genuine way. Read more
- Deliver visibility and awareness campaigns
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla led on internal visibility campaigns to help employees understand how ESG relate to their roles, and how they can support the company's ESG work beyond perceiving it as an extra burden. Read more
- Drive cross-department and cross-functional collaboration
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla created a working group with members from various departments, such as compliance, legal, HR, procurement, and engineering, responsible for the business' ESG strategy and related targets. Read more
  
  Name: Mariko Yamada | Action: Internal | Industry: ICT
  Mariko has supported to establish the internal Sustainability Management Committee, which is chaired by the CEO and includes executives from the across the business. The committee meets twice a year to share the latest ESG trends, set goals for the Fujitsu ESG initiatives, and discuss approaches to making change. Read more
- Empower individuals by making them agents of change
  
  Name: Nadia Reis | Action: Internal & external | Industry: Food retail
  Nadia led mobilization campaigns across the company’s employee network and various Units, encouraging them to develop and present their own projects to the sustainability Unit. This engagement extended to the customer base, collaborating closely with the sustainability department to deliver targeted campaigns highlighting the company’s environmental and social impact. Read more
- Encourage peers or clients to take action and make greater change
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: External | Industry: Software
  Anita connects industry players that are struggling with similar problems or that have complementary skills to help them learn from each other on how to collact and measure the right data.
  Anita tailors her approach to her client's business ambition. Anita successfully leverages reporting as a strategic tool, pushing companies towards quicker, data-based, decisive ESG action. By creating links with mandatory disclosures and policy demands, Anita creates momentum to take action. Read More
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: External | Industry: Energy
  Cayla encourages other business by sharing how JA Solar implements environmental KPIs for departments and achieves revenue growth. Cayla shares her experience and knowledge at key moments and events, including NYCW and COP28. Read More
- Identify internal knowledge gaps and advocate for in-house experts and specilized teams
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita pushed for the creation of a sustainability engineering team, to guide with her knowledge on regulatory frameworks and deep understanding of SAP. She was successful in the creation of this team, whose efforts were instrumental in early development and integration of sustainability into SAP's portfolio. Read More
- Lead top-level advocacy for sustainability within the business
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla advocated for the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) to be a a member of the Executive and Management Team within JA Solar, making it easier to grow the sustainability department and foster external partnerships. Read more
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita intentionally found allies within her company and her client base that believe sustainability is fundamentally important. These allies were instrumental to bring this perspective not just to clients but also her own board. Read more
- Identify and work with key stakeholders within the business
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita works closely with the product management team, focused on creating product features that enables companies to measure and report their environmental performance with greater precision. By engaging in an open dialogue and leveraging SAP’s integrated software approach, Anita was also able to connect the different teams and work towards a coherent ESG strategy. Read more
- Make sustainability specific and measurable for departments and individuals
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita works with teams across the business to ensure SAP 'walks the talk" and addresses its own ESG challenges. A few examples of how they do that includes: a commitment to use renewable energy in their facilities since 2014, linking executive compensation to sustainability goals, and embedding sustainability in the employee culture. Read more
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Business: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla recommends to make sustainability specific to the people that need to work with it by setting targets per department. This ensures everyone has a clear goal that is achievable within their scope of influence. JA Solar has clear ESG objectives and indicators to measure and monitor the business's environmental, social and governance performance. Read more
- Set a clear ESG strategy in line with the business' core mission
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita worked closely with SAP teams to set a clear ESG strategy at the top to integrate sustainability objectives in line with the company’s core mission and personal KPIs. From there, she worked with the middle management to embed the ESG strategy in their daily work and take the entire workforce along. Read more
- Set up specialized ESG departments and working groups
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla created a working group with members from various departments, such as compliance, legal, HR, procurement, and engineering, responsible for the business' ESG strategy and related targets. Cayla stresses the importance of setting up specialised ESG departments, management committees and working groups responsible for formulating and overseeing the implementation of the ESG strategy to ensure consistency with the overall corporate strategy. Read more
- Educate employees on ESG conditions and sustainability topics
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita educates herself and her team on topics that help clients with their sustainability journey. Anita did this by following trainings on industry specific sustainability topics, staying up to date with the latest developments in the field, and by sharing knowledge and best practices with peers across the industry. Read more
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla led on the creation of trainings for JA Solar's employees, especially for those not involved in sustainability initiatives. Some of the key topics touched upon included:
  - General Introduction to ESG
  - Origins and Future Development of ESG
  - Status quo and Challenges of ESG
  - Anti-forced Labor and Supply Chain Due Diligence
  - Read more
  Name: Mariko Yamada | Action: Internal | Industry: ICT
  Mariko spearheads the Fujitsu Way Leader initiative and helps the Unit implement sustainability efforts. Mariko offers education on the importance of ESG and how it impacts business across the globe. She also helps to cascade ESG awareness all the way from executive level down to individual employees. Read more
- Extend education from employees to client-base
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla plans to support JA Solar's Photovoltaic growth in China by extending education from employees to potential PV owners. Read more
- Participate in industry events and forums
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita actively participates in client-facing industry events and forums, sharing her insights and learning from other
  sustainability leaders. Read more
- Build strategic alliances
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita collaborates and builds strategic alliances with key stakeholders to accelerate progress on a larger scale. Read more
  
  Name: Nadia Reis | Action: External | Industry: Food Retail
  Nadia created a Strategic Council comprising key stakeholders and institutions across Portugal. The Council ensures Missão Continente (MC Sonae’s platform for social responsibility projects) remains aligned with and supports the most pressing needs of Portuguese society. With the creation of the Council, Nadia also increased awareness and interaction with MC Sonae’s social responsibility programs across multiple organizations. Read more
- Deliver visibility and awareness campaigns
  
  Name: Anita Varshney | Action: Internal | Industry: Software
  Anita advocated for a specialized sustainability engineering team in SAP to leverage their influence as a technology company to address specific ESG challenges of clients. Read more
  
  Name: Nadia Reis | Action: External | Industry: Food Retail
  Avoid misinterpretation of sustainability efforts, Nadia adopted a transparency-first policy. She produces detailed reports illustrating Sonae’s social responsibility activities and investments. She also oversees a specialized marketing team that reviews all communications to ensure the language or positioning is not misleading. Read more
- Regularly communicate and engage with external stakeholders
  
  Name: Cayla Li | Action: Internal | Industry: Energy
  Cayla regularly engages and collaborates with stakeholders across JA Solar's network and value chains. This includes investors, customers, suppliers and communities, to jointly drive the ESG agenda and enhance corporate sustainability. Read more
  
  Name: Nadia Reis | Action: External | Industry: Food Retail
  To maintain continuous dialogue with local actors and institutions, including NGOs and stores across the country, Nadia’s team set up regular communication processes and touch points. “We talk a lot every week with the stores and our colleagues. We meet with the local institutions, we listen to our Strategic Council. The frequency of contact makes us a big family, the Missão Continente family”. Read more

In collaboration with

Everyday Echoes