Inflexion’s recent Sustainability Exchange invited a group of portfolio companies to share how caring about the environment and their people continues to drive value for their businesses.
From wildfires in California to supply chain scrutiny and data standardisation, risk is emerging across every facet of ESG. Inflexion’s portfolio is rising to the challenges by embracing climate resilience and social impact to embed risk-aware, values-led approaches into operations.
Keniro Miller, Chief People Officer, Ultimate Performance: The wildfires in Los Angeles are a perennial event but this year was different. This year was the perfect storm, with strong winds fuelling the fires. It meant a large-scale evacuation and huge impact. Because we’d recently had fires, people had already lost houses and were wading through insurance to rebuild – and then being evacuated again.
For us as a company, our employees were being evacuated and our businesses were being closed down owing to the smoke and the air quality. As a health and wellness company, we really felt it. It meant clients didn’t want to train – and quite rightly so, air quality made it impossible and people’s minds were focused on protecting their homes.
Both our clients and employees were at high risk and had a lot to lose. We focused on the human element. It was about relocation where possible, and other smaller gestures such as grocery packages to support. We got more involved in community efforts, with our Personal Trainers getting directly involved. Overall the impact on our ability to maintain our level of service meant a commercial impact on us via the reduction of renewals and revenue. We also delayed two new site openings – it was not the right time to open new sites.
Katie Ellis, Head of Operations and Procurement, Cutwel: Our previous backers were very invested in our carbon footprint. It meant we invested heavily here – helping to reduce deliveries by 50%, we stopped sending out multiple packages out to customers, putting systems in place to optimise – and it’s saved us a lot of money. Since Inflexion took over, they’ve helped us address ESG issues in our supply chain. We now have a code of conduct which has been signed by 90 of our suppliers. This has been a positive step – it’s helped open doors as we’ve looked at how we can use ESG to improve our business overall, instead of just using a software solution to tick a box. We’ve been made more aware of how we can reduce our use of paper and implemented tree planting after onboarding an eco print supplier. It’s hard graft but great team building and really worth it as we build our ESG approach.
Marinela Cebic, VP, Global Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance, Steripack: When we first did our Inflexion Sustainability Assessment, we were at the very bottom of the Inflexion rankings. The complexity within our business comes from having manufacturing facilities in Malaysia, Poland and the US as well as design houses in the UK and the US, where data collection across these diverse markets can be challenging. Collecting the ESG data and ensuring everyone understands what to monitor, trend and improve may take time, but it’s essential for standardising and achieving the Group’s ESG goals effectively. Embracing this common-sense approach led to our most recent improvements. While it took time and effort to collect high-quality, consistent data across the Group, our commitment has paid off.
Now that we have ESG appointed resources to managing this process, we can efficiently retrieve data for assessments, whether for Inflexion, EcoVadis, or our customers. Before we embarked on this journey with Inflexion, it would take weeks to obtain required ESG data. Having data readily accessible is essential – this is not a preference; it’s a requirement. This approach saves time and money while ensuring that our management has required any accurate information at their fingertips.
Purnima Sen, Chief Operating Officer, Sparta Global: Values of equity and values of inclusion are not different to creating financial value for a business. They are not exclusive; they co-exist. We use the terms social value and social impact rather than ED&I. We make the link between social impact and financial value by showing outcomes and metrics – it creates better innovation and decision-making. It’s about basing what you’re doing and the metrics that support that a sense of ‘we’re doing something good, but not to tick a box’. Our website now talks about stories to bring that to life.
My favourite is one about a young man we took on years ago. He was one of six siblings with a single mother. It wasn’t about diversity but about a boy who needed an opportunity. He rang to say that after a two-year placement, he was offered a permanent role at a Big 4. It was more money than his mother had ever earned. I congratulated him on a life-changing role and he corrected me. “It’s generation changing. I can now send two of my siblings to university.”
All Inflexion portfolio companies, regardless of size or ownership stake, have full access to our dedicated value acceleration resources covering digital enhancement (including data, AI, technology, cybersecurity and digital marketing), international expansion, M&A, sustainability, commercial strategy and talent management.
