Spotlight | ESG Solutions

Written by Debbie Lentz .

In 2022/23 I became the President of ESG Solutions here at RS Group and focused on delivering our ambitious ESG goals and developing new sustainable product and service solutions to support our customers.

I believe that as an industry we have a huge opportunity to collaborate with our partners to drive greater value for people, planet and profit and this is something that I am personally passionate about driving.

Customers are prioritising sustainability

We know from our close customer relationships and industry research that sustainability is a top business priority for our customers and is central to their business goals, from driving zero carbon operations to being at the forefront of their product procurement strategies. Many of our customers have set challenging net zero goals covering their direct operations and value chain and they need our help to deliver on these ambitions.

More and more, we see ESG as a key part of the major bids and tenders we receive and a key priority in supplier selection and procurement decisions. We are pleased to see that our strong ESG approach is helping us to attract and retain new high-value partnerships and our customers are telling us they want more. They want more choice, assurance and transparency over sustainable and ethical products, more granular reporting of their supply chain footprint, harder commitments to reduce their Scope 3 carbon emissions and product and service solutions to help them meet their goals.

With over 1.1 million customers, over 2,500 direct suppliers and more than 750,000 stocked products we are ideally positioned at the centre of the global industrial value chain to bring together our suppliers and customers to collaborate on these critical issues and drive progress at both ends of our value chain.

Our ESG solutions offering

We are responding to our partner’s needs and have developed an ESG solutions offering centred around three key areas:

1. Better World products

In March 2023, we introduced Better World products, our new range of products with sustainability improvements. We launched with c. 20,000 products in the range and it continues to grow daily – this is just the beginning. We have selected over 40 sustainability certifications and energy labels, all certified by trusted experts and each product is tagged with a Better World badge. This makes it easier for our customers to select greener product alternatives that they can trust.

We are moving things forward – developing our product framework to accommodate a wider range of sustainability claims with robust evidence, engaging with suppliers to understand their product improvements and adding them to the range, as well as rolling out to more countries in 2024.

We are also working with our suppliers on developing product recycling options and take-back schemes for our customers for key products like personal protective equipment, electronics and cables. Our customers want more circularity options and to be able to recycle their products responsibly. We are well placed to support them to do that and in doing so we will create new revenue streams, along with stronger and loyal relationships.

2. Service solutions

We are developing new service solutions that help our customers improve the efficiency of their operations, reduce their energy, cut their carbon emissions and accelerate their net zero goals. A great example is RS Industria , which connects and monitors factory operations to reduce costs and make energy savings.

Providing these value-added solutions attracts new customers, creates sustainable returns and is a key differentiator for our brand. We want to work together and deepen our supplier partnerships to offer our customers a greater variety of sustainable products and service solutions. In doing so, we know there is great commercial opportunities for more strategic relationships and to support our value chain partners to reduce their carbon emissions (our Scope 3 emissions).

Beyond sustainability, we see growth in solutions that support people and social impact. For example, today we already offer educational products and solutions to c. 4,400 education institutions globally (schools, colleges and universities) and these are vital to help the next generation of engineers and innovators to develop their skills and experience.

In 2022/23 we launched our education programme to create one global programme, enabling more of our markets to participate in activities directly with our education customers. This has been rolled out to 10 countries in 2022/23 and by 2023/24 our aim is to reach 15 countries.

We are also developing our health and safety solutions for customers, which complement our existing safety solutions product offering. More to come on this in 2023/24.

3. Low carbon industries

Beyond our traditional customer sectors, we have a huge opportunity to serve the growth industries that will drive the low carbon transition.

Renewable, green hydrogen, electric vehicles (EVs) and smart mobility, carbon capture and storage industries will grow. As an industry, we must pivot our product and service solutions to new sectors, to help create a more sustainable world.

We are already focused on supporting the offshore wind industry and the EV charging market in the UK. Offshore wind has and will continue to see exponential growth and we are making good headway in establishing RS as a key MRO partner to the UK Offshore wind industry. Through our partnership with Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, our aim is to become the MRO supply chain partner of choice to the installers, maintainers and operators within the offshore wind space. See page 56 of the Annual Report and Accounts for more information.

We remain focused on enhancing our capabilities and relationships to better serve these sectors and we will continue to diversify our supplier partnerships to offer the product and service solutions they need to grow.

RS is well positioned to capitalise

I believe that RS is in a pivotal position at the centre of the value chain, where we can bring together the world’s leading suppliers of innovative products and clean technologies with our customers – the world’s designers, operators and maintainers of industrial equipment and operations – to deliver positive change for people and planet. In doing so I believe we will have a positive impact and generate new opportunities for profitable and sustainable growth for RS.

I am incredibly excited about the opportunities that lay ahead and truly believe that as an industry we can play a critical role in developing and supplying the products and service solutions needed to support the transition to a low carbon world.

Learn more about ESG at RS Group and Our 2030 Action Plan For A Better World: https://www.rsgroup.com/sustainability/