Fireside Chat on Driving Sustainability Transformation

Excerpts from a fireside chat with Andrew Buay, Vice President Group Sustainability, Singtel & Optus , at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) MicroMaster Course on Sustainability - Driving Sustainable Transformation. Discussions facilitated by Calvin Chu Yee Ming , Managing Partner Eden Strategy Institute, LLP. 4 July 2024.

1. ?If your motivations are not driven by a broader and deeper sense of purpose, you will soon be disillusioned by the challenges that lie ahead in sustainability.
2. One often needs to dig deep to one's past and lived experience to discover what drives your deeper purpose.
3. You will face naysayers and sceptics that can burn your energy. So, focus on finding those likeminded purpose-driven individuals in your organization to find alliance, support and get the quick wins. They are the quick followers akin to the "crazy dancing guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JK892LNiw4
4. For many purpose-driven allies, many still don't know what to do in sustainability, so your role is to guide them on the "how" not just on the “what”.
5. “Fence-sitters” come along in the journey once sustainability gathers momentum in the organization.?
6. Naysayers know well enough when it’s time to jump on the sustainability bandwagon, or they will stick out like a sore thumb when the majority get it and are embedding sustainability in what they do. Naysayers soon become the “laggards”.
7. Sustainability professionals need to deal with complete ambiguity, and have to be good at problem-solving, because the topic is constantly evolving and there is not always a playbook for everything. This was certainly the case in the earlier days before there was clarity of standards and frameworks for many emerging ESG issues. But even today, we are faced with new ambiguous challenges and emerging ESG issues to solve for where no playbook is yet written.
8. Finding a path forward and the right solutions often comes from leveraging the diversity in an organization. This is where true diversity and inclusion makes a difference in sustainability.
9. Also being a leadership coach, I found that when you help people discover their bigger goal and deeper purpose, sustainability then comes naturally to them. They become your strongest allies.
10. Don’t go chasing roles that only hold titles of Sustainability. Sustainability should be embedded in every function and role. So, start with what you have deep experience and knowledge for and embed sustainability from there. That is your competitive advantage, and not always pivoting too far into sustainability with little leverage of your past experience and existing competencies.
11. Many of the sustainability roles that people are currently trying to get into currently will soon “normalize” and disappear once things become legislated for compliance.
12. Finding the value and business case from sustainability is not always straight forward. Think in terms of a) value-defense through risk management; b) intangible value drivers such as staff engagement and reputation/trust; c) there is real value from operational efficiencies that also have a positive environmental and social impact; and d) future value from opportunities that recognize future trends.
13. Don't just chase compliance, but see what you do as transforming the company’s underlying operating model for sustainability.
14. The importance of stakeholder and “double materiality” from the financial impact of ESG issues to shape where the company focuses on, as it’s easy to try and cover everything with the same level of importance just because it is part of compliance reporting.
15. The role of the sustainability profession is also for sensing developments and trends in the future and helping the organization get ahead of things before things become legislated or risks become mainstream.?Compliance costs is greatest when done at the last minute and not normalized within the operating model of the company.
16. What would I have done differently with the benefit of hindsight? - not run so fast and spend more time bringing more along the early journey through education, something we have focused on the past few years “to make up”.?
17. I ended with my "blue water" bottle (which is my daughter’s school water bottle) that I use while travelling, akin to #MyBlueMug and now #MyYellowMug for which many know me for at Optus – to make a point that sustainability is not all big transformation, but can start with simple personal actions to walk the walk.?

That's quite a lot covered for an hour of rapid-fire dialogue and Q&A. We could have gone on for hours.

#Sustainability #Purpose #SingtelLife #OptusLife #EmpowerEveryGeneration #ESG