Circularity Advisory, U-Turning Policies and Helping Bakers Reduce Impact

Tracy's Perspective

Spring has sprung at Root HQ in Kent and it’s been rewarding continuing my surveying volunteering on the local coastline and in the Darent Valley with Kent Wildlife Trust .

I’m just back from a mini staycation which had an unpredicted single use plastic crab shock – read here if you want to know more about an unusual piece of packaging design!

I’ve enjoyed being interviewed by our new partner Craft Bakers Association 's for their member magazine Thirteen which will be out later this month. I’m also putting the finishing touches to the content for an informative webinar on the Circular Economy for SME's and am pleased to have been invited as a guest for the Millennials Gone Circular Podcast – details for both are below.

We’ve recently made some updates to Root’s offer, so if it’s been a while since you’ve been on our website, take a look around to make sure you’re up to date.

If you’re like some of our client’s who are finding it tough to pull together the commercial business case for sustainability, we feel your pain! This report from the wonderful team at Positive Luxury should help!

What the Root Team are up to

The team are busy preparing for recent project wins where we’ll be supporting global packaging businesses with Regulatory, Impact and Strategy support;

• One project is our third with the same producer, who worked with us to develop their sustainability strategy in 2022 and has since been collecting carbon footprinting data. They are now ready to develop their net zero roadmap before we help them pull together their first impact report to share with customers. We’ll be doing the vital work to help them understand the risks and impacts associated with their products today and will use our expertise to develop a number of different scenarios that will highlight the financial, climate and business impacts of changes across materials to help them meet net zero.
• The other is with a new client who needs ongoing support to understand the impacts of forthcoming sustainability, circular economy and packaging regulation. We’ll be analysing their European business strategy alongside the regulatory landscape to identify what organisational, process and design changes they need to make to ensure they are policy-prepared and can deliver on their strategic goals.

CBA Partner with Root to Help Bakers Identify and Reduce Impact?

We’re pleased to announce our partnership with Craft Bakers Association who have taken the initiative to support members by partnering with Root to help bakers identify and reduce impact in 2025 and beyond.

At Root, we’ve worked with lots of businesses in the food and drink and hospitality sectors and understand the rising pressures professionals are under. The baking industry, specifically, is facing an era of change, and sustainability is at the heart of it. With rising energy costs, increasing raw material prices, and growing customer awareness of environmental impact, bakers are under pressure to adapt.

“We want to help bakers understand and take care of the things that might get in the way of them doing what they do best, which is baking,” Tracy Sutton, Director, Root

We’re working closely with the Craft Bakers Association to ensure their members are prepared for forthcoming sustainability regulation and creating and sharing vital resources that will help them identify and reduce impact.

"We are delighted to welcome Tracy Sutton and Root to advise the Craft Bakers Association. Root’s Advisory support will be invaluable in engaging our members on their sustainability journey, helping them prepare for forthcoming regulations, and providing vital resources to reduce their environmental impact—no matter where they are on their path to sustainability."?Karen Dear, CEO Craft Bakers Association

If the World is U-Turning on Sustainability, How Should Future-fit Businesses Respond?

Whether it’s the techbros about-facing on their diversity strategies, or the EU dismantling its own corporate sustainability reporting regulations, 2025 has so far been a year retrograde steps.

Whilst some boards will no doubt use this moment of U-turning into an opportunity to throttle back on spend and refocus purely on ‘ESG Compliance’, the more astute business leaders will use this time to really finesse and embed a more context-based approach to driving change inside their organisations. Change which - let’s not forget - is going to make their businesses more resilient, less open to risk, more robust and above all, future-fit.

The rhetoric in sustainability may change from month to month, but ultimately investors, employees and customers all want the same things - accountable, resilient, risk-managed businesses with a clear and consistent underlying culture that all their stakeholders understand and recognise.

Companies that fail to grasp this reality and continue to ignore the rapidly changing world around will ultimately see their revenue streams dry up and their workforces churn. Those that use this time to double time om their efforts to build value beyond simply financial returns, in true alignment with the physical and social realities of our time, may soon be the only ones left standing.

Sophie Brooks is the Founder of Sustainability Strategy consultancy Fit for Purpose. Read the full article here.

Circularity Webinar and Podcast - Free Resources

One of our goals this year is to be more inclusive and to make our industry-leading expertise more accessible to smaller businesses and passionate individuals who want to take action but are limited in budget and resource.

1. Amplifi Webinar March 19th 9:30am

Are you an SME who:

• wants to reduce the impact of your business?
• knows a bit about the Circular Economy but are not quite sure where to start?
• needs help to understand what the Circular Economy looks like in your sector?

Join me in the second of Amplifi's webinars which are designed to help businesses get to grips with key sustainability issues so they can reduce impact in their business.

Click here for more info including how to book.

2. Millennials Gone Circular Podcast

I recently had the pleasure of joining Millennials Gone Circular co-hosts, Caitlyn Socwell , Said Fadyl , Angelica Barrios Martinez and The Waste Not Spot for an insightful conversation about Circular Economy. The episode goes live on March 17th and you’ll be able to listen on the below channels:

?? Spotify

?? Apple Podcasts

Huge thanks to Caitlyn, Said, Angelica and The Waste Not Spot for hosting this conversation—it is always a pleasure to share my learnings and experiences with other passionate people working to create real change around the world.

Partner Promotion

If you feel overwhelmed or are not sure where to start collecting data for your carbon footprint, our partner Consciam Limited will be able to help. Most businesses struggle with carbon data collection because they don’t know what’s needed or where to find it. Consciam is currently running a free Carbon Data Sprint Challenge to guide you through the process.

All you need is just 1-2 hrs a week for four weeks. Consciam will provide easy to use templates to help you collate the data and have released a series of video tutorials covering:

• What a carbon footprint is, and why you might need one
• What data you’ll need, and where to find it
• Bonus topics for more complex footprints

Sign up here for free access to the sprint challenge! You can also access Consciam’s simple carbon footprint calculator here. Its free for the smallest companies and competitively priced for everone else.