Oriane Wiser - Sustainability Rating Platform (GSES System)

Oriane

What frustrates me and that I'm confronted to do is behaviors. And those comments almost on a weekly basis with when introducing or pitching the ESG rating platform is how is that going to help me sell more products are going to help me make profit.

Paul

Okay. Interesting.

Oriane

And they won't be any products. So if in 50 years there's no planet.

Paul

Hello and welcome to Rethink What Matters, The podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone. For improved business performance, stronger families, and a greener, cooler planet.

And today, I'm joined by our and wiser program manager at the Global Sustainable Enterprise System in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. And we're going to be discussing sustainability rating platforms. So the Jesus system is a sustainability rating platform. So on this podcast, we're going to be learning about sustainability. Rating platforms are really looking forward to this because it's something which I think is helping us to join a pool of adults, which is very much what a water room is all about.

So perhaps we could start off around with you telling us a little bit about your role there and a bit more about global sustainable enterprises.

Oriane

Yes, of course. So I'll start by introducing the GSES So yes, yes, it's founded by Kelly Reichardt in 2019. It is a still the startup is scaling up. We are young and a driven team and GSES is a software as a service. So we are basically the digital bridge between companies, suppliers and product manufacturers with third party auditors to verify their sustainability performance.

In short, we often called GSES as the one stop sustainability management platform because you can manage all of your companies or organization sustainability performance through the platform, including its supply chain and its products. And by including the supply chain, we ensure third party verification on scope three emissions amongst many other things. My role as program manager, I joined the company in 2020, so still when it was, it was very young.

We are now almost three years down the line for me and we have launched many of our now core modules, such as the supply chain dashboard and the product assessment, which I can talk a bit more later. But my role as program manager is mostly to strategize. Are our global expansion. We are a tool that is sector agnostic and also territory agnostic.

Our wide network of third party auditors cover more than 110 countries, which is also what you need when you want to ensure supply chain assessment. Because supply chains almost, almost always include many other constituencies, many countries, many different companies and organizations. So that's also why we don't only service private organizations, but also public governmental organizations.

Paul

Perhaps you could tell us a little bit more then about sustainability rating platforms, what exactly they are, how they work a little bit more. The detail, if you can please orient.

Oriane

Yes, of course. So a sustainability management platform will get you. Most of our clients come because they need to be regulations ready, so in Europe, for example, we have the CSRD coming up, which is the corporate sustainability reporting directives launched by the European Commission that is forcing companies to actually comply with sustainability reporting and making sure that their sustainability performance are not greenwashing but are legitimate.

So in that sense, our clientele comes to us and they first start with a zero point measurement. A zero point measurement is to understand what is your current state of your sustainability performance. To do a zero point measurement, all you would need to do is insert your certification. So companies have often a lot of certifications such as ISO Standards GRI, which are legitimizing and certifying that their organizations as environmentally friendly or or that their I.T services is secured.

So there are certifications in all rounds, but we of course focus on sustainability certifications and we are able to give you a legitimate ESG score. Now an ESG score, environmental, social and governance score is to give you a number to kind of rate you on your sustainability performance. It's the most common used grade grading system and the Universal School of Sustainability, so to speak.

And we facilitate for our companies the communication across all their stakeholders on their own sustainability performance. So typically an ESG rating or sustainability rating platform will get the data from its clients so that our clients insert the data that will then be third party verified by the auditors and then GSES generate based on the audit reports we get back, we generate an ESG score.

Paul

Okay, okay. And that ESG score is recognized. It's a globally recognized score. Is it?

Oriane

Exactly. It's globally recognized. It's the most common used to measure sustainability, but not necessarily only at the corporate level, but at any organizational level.

And also, it's good to note that there are internationally recognized frameworks to align with sustainability guidelines that the U.N. or EU big, big international organization such as them like to push for. So ISO is one of them. But the EU directives, of course, GRI and the SDGs the Sustainable Development Goals and these are all aligned on get so you can make sure that you are your sustainability performance reflects one that is aligned with the internationally recognized standards.

Paul

So I think I came to you originally through the global through the Sustainable Development Goals and I was interested to hear is a system that's helping a company to implement the 17 SDGs or to measure them at least. Yes. So you can then see you can then import data associated with each of the 17 SDGs. And would that be correct?

Oriane

That's very correct. Well, I'll tell a little more about this. So. So I've talked about. Yes. Yes. And now we have the link with an SDG assessment measurement dashboards based on project level, and that's under the brand called Data for Good. That is also linked through our platform. And this incentivizes our users to actually report on their impact and how they're helping achieve or how they're helping achieving certain targets.

Of the 2030 agenda set by the UN. And how we do it is we actually measure on project level. So very different than the Organization Supply Chains Assessment Project based approach. So we will ask our clients to give us their KPIs and insert their targets so that say if they want to run a project that's going to support a SDG7 that's clean energy and reducing CO2 emissions, they can plot their own project and explain how they are achieving a certain target of seven or not necessarily achieving it, but rather or rather contributing to its achievement.

And then just like on the GSES platform, we will have that project mapping and results based on their progress and their deadlines once their project is achieved, verified by third party auditors. And that way they can communicate with verified information on their contribution to the SDGs, on their sustainability reporting, for example.

Paul

Okay, so while the UN involved in assessing the level to which a company is achieving the SDGs.

Oriane

The UN's involvement towards the SDGs is only to read reports that come in from all the state members of the UN. So basically the way we work, especially in the Netherlands because we are Dutch founded and data for good, which takes care of the project assessments for SDGs is a recent is a recent project for us. And we work with with the SDG Netherlands Foundation, which is an organization dedicated to report on the Netherlands, achievement on the SDGs and progress towards the 2030 Agenda.

So we facilitate the measurement of their claims through data for good, which then enables the Dutch government to report with verified information to the UN.

Paul

Right. Okay. How small clients do you work with? Because, you know, we want we want private companies to be doing this as much as big public corporations and big corporations. So how small a client can can get involved with.

Oriane

You and there for good, there's an individual membership that's free. So even just a single human being can do it on as we have assessments made for big corporates like you mentioned, and for corporates in general. But we also have SMEs, small and medium enterprises assessments and that allows even a startup to enroll and do a zero point measurement and have a sustainability assessment done because eventually, especially specifically in Europe, CSRD will concern everyone at some point.

So we need to get also the smaller companies ready for sure.

Paul

That's very much, I think, the focus of Awardaroo to be honest. You mentioned zero Point is that same as a carbon footprint.

Oriane

Zero point measurement is just to see where your status quo is. That's so it's an assessment of the status quo in terms of your sustainability measurement. We will analyze the CO2 footprint. We have six pillars, basically for an organizational assessment because we strongly believe in the holistic approach of sustainability. And this is very important for any anyone out there thinking of sustainability.

Sustainability is not only your carbon footprint. Climate change is driven largely by GHG emissions, sure, but it's not only by CO2 emissions, for starters. And it's not only driven by GHG emissions, it's also driven by biodiversity loss. And biodiversity is an assessment in our standards actually, but also to have a sustainable world that can last on the long run and a sustainable society, so to speak, you need to have health and wellbeing included.

You need to have CSR, corporate social responsibility, making sure that the workforce is well treated and making sure that no one is left behind, but also making sure that your supply chain is sustainable. So one of the assessment is sustainable procurement. You also have circular economy because and that's driven by the cradle to cradle on the product level, but also the approach of the donor economy.

So actually thinking of it as an economy that stays within the planetary boundaries without jeopardizing future generations, resources and needs. So we are not exclusively a carbon accounting platform. We do have a carbon dashboard that allows you to verify third party, verify again, your carbon footprint, and then we are partners with compensation program. So carbon compensation programs that will help compensate for your emissions.

And we are working on a project with a partner called ABB, the large corporation, to actually re launch a verified scheme to legitimize the carbon credit and carbon accounting fields.

Paul

The secret to all of this must be transparency. I think so. To what extent, if you like, is transparency supported, you know, by the GSES system?

Oriane

Very good question and very good assumption. Transparency is key in the realm of sustainability to fight greenwashing, notably and to make real claims. Our transparency layer comes from our third party auditors network. Most most predominantly, but we also use transparent methodologies that is shared with everyone our clients, members, partners, and even the audiences that follow us on social media will know we'll have access to our methodologies.

We're very transparent with the way we work and you need to be transparent. We we often outside of outside of our work as GSES members, we we preach transparency because if we are not transparent that we don't have a real sustainability performance assessment and then we don't know what is the state of the world, right? And then that means we don't, knowing what state we're leaving it for future generations.

Paul

Okay. I think the danger with a system like this potentially is it puts the focus on measurement and analysis rather than action. So to what extent do you drive action with this?

Oriane

I know that's a very good question. I'm happy you're asking that. It's true that we often have the motto measuring is knowing. Once you measure, you know how you can go further, what you can achieve, you know where you stand. But it might not like you insinuated, it might not push you to actually do more. It might not push you for action.

And this is why Data for Good was found. It's because Data for Good is a project based approach assessment. So you don't start by measuring actually, you start by lining out your project and the actions you are going to take to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals. And then at the end, if you want to get your project verified to legitimate to to legitimate it towards your stakeholders or even shareholders, then you can get it verified and measured by third party assessments.

But it's just to drive action and to to motivate people to all join together. We also have alliance dashboards where you can collaborate on get on on projects so you're not just on your own, just not your own organization or your own self as an individual. Yeah, you can join collaboration because working together, you'll go further, you'll achieve more, more impact.

Paul

Okay, okay. You know, oftentimes companies are already very busy. Sometimes it's about survival. And this just becomes one just another thing for them to do. So I can imagine it might be difficult to get traction with it. How do you get people involved with this and keep it going, keep motivated?

Oriane

It's it's a very good question. And it's it's a hard it's it's a hard thing to tackle, whether it's for a GSES or for data for good. Taking action is something that we will collaborate with other companies who are such as NGOs, who's our campaign in companies whose core work is to drive impact and to motivate people to make an impact.

But we work a lot with government, all institutions that themselves, especially in the Netherlands, you have a lot of public private partnership. So for example, you have municipalities that own shares in private companies. And so through the municipalities and through ministries, we actually motivate private companies to engage because then they can have they can showcase to their shareholders, who are often governmental bodies, that they are helping them to contribute to the SDG progress of the Netherlands or of any country.

So in that sense, we motivate them. Then I'm going to be honest with you, Paul. One of the big motivations is regulation, right? So the more companies are aware of all the financial consequences that they can bear if they don't take action, this is the biggest motivation right now.

Paul

Well, okay. Okay. That's good. That's interesting. I said very interesting insight. So that's where we are today. It's a more push, than pull.

Oriane

It's definitely more push and pull, but we're entering a new era with the regulations coming into play. And I think what's going to follow up is companies or any organizations that take action on their own hands and take the initiative in their own hands, so to speak, because the younger generations were raised with the conscience of sustainability and protecting the natural resources so that future generations have access to them.

So we are going towards progress and we are going towards more action and more creating impact.

Paul

Are there any case studies or stories you can share with us of people using the GSES system?

Oriane

Yes. So I'll talk about the Johan Cruyff Arena. The Johan Cruyff Arena is the biggest stadium in the Netherlands. It's in Amsterdam and it's if are soccer soccer lovers amongst your audience, it's the home of Ajax team and they have a strong purpose to drive innovation and to they set a 2030 target to be to be neutral, carbon neutral, and even net positive.

If if they achieve carbon neutrality, then they want to be net positive. So by 2030 their target is net positivity for the arena. They've been using the GSES system to set to not only to see their zero point measurement, where they're at, how they can contribute better, what they can put in place to achieve a better, sustainable performance.

But they wanted to take it further. Their Chief Innovation Officer is driven by purpose for this and that's how he was interested in using data for good and using the SDG dashboards to showcase the contribution of the arena to the 2030 agenda. And so in that sense, the arena is one of our first frontrunners using both GSES and data for good and on data for good, they're are actually proving and measuring through projects by installing food transformers that creates biomass energy from food waste, but also projects on green energy.

So they've installed more than 4000 solar panels on the roof of the stadium and they can create a lot of energy and therefore they can contribute to the municipality of Amsterdam's own targets because the municipality of Amsterdam owns 49% of the shares of the arena and therefore they have high stake and in the arena sustainability and they and they can help each other achieving their sustainability targets.

And for example, so you have the arena who had their own targets, but you have the municipality of Amsterdam who wants to be 50% to reduce its CO2 emissions of the city by 2030 of 50%.

To align with the Paris Agreement of coming back to the emissions that in 1990 and through the project mapping and and verifying their achievements on their actions through data for goods. The arena is legitimizing it's its purpose and its efforts to contribute to the targets of the municipality.

Paul

Okay. All right. Thank you. With with ESG, we've got environmental, social and governance. And it seems to me that sometimes we approach that the wrong way round. And if we go environmental and social and governance, yes, it should really be covered. It's first. And what's your view on that?

Oriane

That's a very good question. That's why we focus on the holistic approach of sustainability. So there is no strong, stronger emphasis on environmental or social or governance. Environmental is the frontrunner in ESG for many people and for many organizations. Why? Because it's easier to measure. It's easier to assess. Right. But we are seeing amongst our our clients and amongst our Argentine network and in the Netherlands and all across Europe, a strong emphasis on good governance because good governance is seen as the the driver for change.

With bad governance, you will not achieve much, you will not achieve your actions and you will not achieve impact. You need good governance before you implement environmental strategies. And in that sense, I do. I if your question is a very good one, it is very important for people to really not disregard the agenda for S and G.

Paul

What are the frustrations you find there are around sustainability rating platforms? Have you got to be stories about where it's just not worked or it's not working?

Oriane

Yeah, very good question. One of my main frustration, and I think it comes from a personal trainer as well, a personal background. I have a master's in climate change and international development, so I am not only preaching because I work for a sustainability management platform. What frustrates me and that's I'm confronted to those behaviors and those comments almost on a weekly basis with when introducing or pitching the ESG rating platform is how is that tool going to help me sell more products are going to help me make profit.

And it's a legitimate question. When you're head of a portfolio or head of a product or head of sales, it's a legitimate question. It's your job to make profit. And I understand that and respect that there won't be any products to sell if in 50 years there is no planet.

So it's the the biggest struggle is to actually switch the minds versus short term or towards long term.

Paul

And Awardaroo is very much focused on a regeneration as opposed to sustainability.

Oriane

Yeah, I also prefer regenerative to sustainable, although sustainability has most commonly known than regenerative. So that's why in the semantic we do use sustainability more than regeneration, although from an academic perspective and an expert perspective, regenerative has it all the name you need to focus on it not being a one time use or not, or not being a short term product or service, you need to think about regenerating it and making sure that its lifespan is as long as it can.

So the approach of reusing versus recycling is something that is very leveraged in in the in the regeneration approach in on our product assessment, we do we do actually follow the methodology of regenerative approach. So in that sense we are including the regenerative approach because actually sustainability falls under the regenerative approach. What I like about regenerative is that it's the umbrella above that they include that includes the SDGs the planetary boundaries and and sustainability ESG assessment you get.

If you want to truly be sustainable, then you need to think regeneration wise.

Paul

I think so, because sustainable almost by definition is equals failure because we have something at the moment we don't want to sustain, you know, it's all it's broken. We don't want to sustain something that's broken. We need to improve what we have and rebuild what we've broken and build capacity for the future. Because there's still going to be growth, because there's going to be 8 billion people, 10 billion, whatever it is, they're all going to want to get wealthier.

So I think I read that the global economy, the output economy could double in 30 or 40 years. You know what it took to take 240 years we're going to do in the next 30 or 40. So, yeah, this is an exponentially compounding problem, which if we don't regenerate, we just way we just won't make it. Frankly. I mean.

Oriane

Can I just comment on, on sustainability. Um, yeah, again, fixated investment, climate change. But the problem with the word sustainability is that the word in itself actually resonates with what you just said. It makes you think of what you just said, but the definition of sustainability in academia and that's used for the methodologies and that's the legitimate sustainability definition, is to actually make sure that the needs of current generations are and the uses of natural resources of current generations are not jeopardizing future generations, and that we are actually including in our current usage, including for the future generations.

So in that sense, sustainability and regeneration are very close. But of course greenwashing and and just, I mean mostly driven by fossil fuel companies and by big profit for profit companies have twisted the word sustainability around a concept of it. And that's that's the struggle also of being in the sustainability world as a company. It's always to educate and to make sure that we are not getting the wrong point across.

Paul

So if it's driven mainly by compliance, does that mean that I think compliance only really applies in the UK at least for companies that are employing 250 people or more. So the companies employ less than 250 people. They don't have this compliance issue.

Oriane

No, not now, not for now. It's going to be the CSRD is starting in waves. So it's going to be a wave process. So the first batch will be the big fish in the EU and the big fish in the EU market.

So definitely companies are more than 250 employees, but as the wave as the year goes on, CSRD wants to include everyone.

Paul

And if you're a small company employing, say, 200 people and for your customers a few thousand, you probably yourself need to be able to share your carbon footprint or your sustainability credentials ratings to that larger organization because because that kind of demand it for their own for their own certification.

Oriane

Exactly. And that's why we work a lot with companies who want to assess all their suppliers, to assess all their supply chain. And when you work with a big corporation, the way we do it is actually facilitate sustainability assessment for their smaller suppliers or for their smaller for their smaller suppliers. We obviously give lower fees for rating because when you manage I mean, for example, for some of our clients, we are going to assess or we're assessing more than thousands of suppliers and some or even very small companies, some are in less than ten people.

So for them, they have they have a different requirement and a different price. And that's driven by the corporate ambitions to show their sustainability performance at the supply chain level. So you could you can also see that sustainability focused people often find solutions to include to be as inclusive as possible because they know that they can't do it alone.

So they're going to have to help those that can't afford it.

Paul

And just give us your impression then, of how much you think this is changing behaviors? Actually.

Oriane

There are many reasons why they're changing behaviors. It's a confrontation. It's like looking at yourself in the mirror. It's it's very confrontational when you realize how bad your KPIs are based on verified data that's been third party verified and you have legitimate sustainability performance that shows you that you are your governance is actually not good, that your social KPIs and targets are not good, that your score, your verified score is below 10%.

That drives change, especially for competitive minds and for the management level. They're realizing the impact of that sustainability. Focus needs to be really sound. It needs to include everything and you can't just grade well and CO2 emissions. You also need to make sure that your your staff and your workforce is well treated because of compliance coming in. And those regulations.

So it's changing behavior in that sense, but also it's changing behavior on the board level because now in in their quarterly the quarterly meetings with the investors or their quarterly meetings with the admin board, they share their ESG rating, their share, their sustainability performance, and they show why they need to put budget on this to achieve better rating, to then be the product that people will use because it's the product that's going to last the most because it is encompassing the sustainability approach and it's encompassing the survival of humanity.

And those often I mean, sustainability just challenges intergenerational debates as well, because we have generations that were actually told to consume as much as they could to help the economy.

No, that's very true.

And it's very hard to then tell them, well, now. Well, no, you buy secondhand everything. You don't help the economy and in their head and in their minds. And if you look at just an economist or an economist standing point, you're like, this is never going to work. We're not going to generate money. Sure, we might save the planet, but we're not going to be able to feed ourselves because we won't have money for it.

So that's also it's also part of the challenge. But having teams that have different age groups in them challenges dialogs and help a common understanding of the importance of this and how it can work.

Paul

Oh yeah. Thank you very much for your time on this podcast and helping us to understand how sustainability rating platforms work and the value that they bring and how your G says system works as well. Thanks very much for your time on this podcast.

Oriane

Thank you very much Paul.

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