With mandatory sustainability reporting creeping closer, many organisations are asking “How do we get started in tackling sustainability within our organisation?”
As organisations look to activate sustainability and understand the underlying drivers leading them down this path, it becomes clear that a plan and roadmap are required to drive them to success. The European Union has put into force the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) which mandates climate reporting, and which will be applicable to entities along a transitionary period starting off from 2025.
What is a sustainability roadmap?
A sustainability roadmap provides a succinct way to represent an organisation's sustainability strategy visually. It should support clear communication with relevant stakeholders to help them understand the organisation’s priorities, direction and timing for the various inputs contributing to its overall sustainability plan.
Why do you need a sustainability roadmap?
A sustainability roadmap can help to:
- Clearly outline the organisation’s project objectives,
- Gain early buy-in on project deliverables,
- Manage stakeholder expectations from the outset, and
- Create greater accountability, helping the organisation to track and report progress.
Internal beneficiaries of a sustainability roadmap can include:
- The Board and its subcommittees to ensure the overall direction meets their needs and expectations
- Executive team to ensure the functional strategies of the organisation are collaborative and aligned
- Sustainability team to support their conversations with stakeholders, and manage expectations, and
- The broader organisation to allow people to see the journey all are on together and identify ways to play a part in its success.
Approaching the organisation’s sustainability roadmap
Reflecting on the compliance or strategic imperative driving an organisation’s sustainability journey helps to start at a high level and then fine-tune the details. One should plot out the stages, deadlines, or deliverables an organisation needs to achieve before deep diving into the steps it must take to make these happen.It can even help to take a more significant step back to look at the broader environment. Consider the world around the organisation to anticipate the international, supply chain or industry expectations one might predict to take a longer-term view. For example, suppose the organisation wants to create a five-year roadmap. In that case, it might consider the sustainability standards developing in leading jurisdictions around the world, speak to the organisations in its supply chain to understand their future expectations or speak to industry bodies or networks to understand its competitive environment. Forecasting these external needs can help the organisation retain its license to operate or gain a competitive advantage as it builds and achieves its sustainability roadmap.
Depending on the complexity of the organisation’s roadmap, it may even need to break down the project plan into streams. For example, it might align project streams with the mandatory reporting requirements that apply to it, or its priorities established in its materiality assessment or even based on grouping the commitments and contributions of the responsible leaders. Drawing the project streams together is essential to creating a clear, cohesive sustainability roadmap regardless of an organization’s approach.
How BDO Malta can help
Whether the organisation’s approach to sustainability is meeting compliance or a strategic imperative, BDO Malta's Sustainability & ESG Advisory experts can support organisations with:
- Collecting carbon data,
- Mandatory and voluntary sustainability reporting,
- Sustainability strategies
- Developing a sustainability roadmap to meet strategic or compliance-based requirements.
- Supply chain due diligence
- Double Materiality assessments
- ESG readiness and Assurance
- ESG Advisory