Following Microsoft’s announcement that it intends to be carbon negative by 2030, it’s clear that meeting sustainability demands will top boardroom priorities moving forward. Leaders must now recognise that failure to prioritise this issue will result in significant profit loss. Why? Increasingly, customers across the supply chain are choosing to distance themselves from third parties or suppliers that don’t function in a sustainable manner.
But how can organisation’s change the way they operate and meet their customer’s sustainability demands? Information Age spoke to Dave Crew, commercial director EMEA at Targus, to find out.
Becoming sustainable: start with the product
Targus, the consumer electronics company, has been on a sustainability drive. “It’s now what we describe as table stakes,” said Crew. “We operate across many diverse markets and some, that are perhaps as less developed, do not prioritise sustainability as highly compared to others. However, for us as an organisation, we’re passionate about delivering good quality products that meets strong corporate social responsibility targets.”
Famed for supplying laptop bags (and more recently backpacks and dockers), Targus’ sustainability mission began with its products, from development to how it shipped them.
As we went through this process [of making the products more sustainable], we really started taking lessons for ourselves, internally,” continued Crew. “And we began looking at how we could recycle within our offices and get more collaboration when it comes to conferencing, rather than having to fly people all over the world.”
The need to travel significantly contributes to an organisation’s environmental footprint — remote working solutions can facilitate better collaboration between employers and employees in different geographies — decreasing the need to travel, while saving costs.
Organisations need a universal solution to meet their customers’ sustainability demands
Optimising space: key for sustainability success
Analysing workspace data is really important when it comes to understanding the environmental impact of an organisation and its employees.
Having a expansive view of an organisation, what workspaces are used more than others, when users are at their most and least productive, will allow employers to allocate resources inline with a sustainable strategy.
