Our Purpose
Sustainability is key to business success.
Our Sustainability Competence Center supports companies transition to a business model that is equipped for the future, through creating profitable, growth-based strategies that have zero, or even a positive impact in terms of environmental and social footprints along a company’s value chain.
What challenges do we help our clients overcome?
Pressures versus Opportunities: Sustainability is a catalyst for progress
PRESSURES
Sustainability issues are disrupting the business world and are fundamentally changing how businesses operate. Organizations are at the center of this disruption, as they suffer from the consequences and are core to driving the solution.
Businesses depend on natural resources to operate – from soil, water, and nutrients to metals and clean air. Increasing pressure is being applied to these resources, which is affecting future availability, and impacting operations directly.
Stakeholder pressure is increasing in every industry – consumers are demanding greener products, investors are divesting companies with unsustainable practices, different societal groups are ‘shaming’ the biggest polluters and uncovering human rights issues, younger generations no longer want to work for unsustainable companies, and new regulations and legislation are being put in place. All of these shifts are requiring businesses to react and adjust the way they operate to remain profitable.
OPPORTUNITIES
Too often only the risk side is emphasized – but sustainability should be seen as a vehicle to create new business opportunities.
It should act as a catalyst to inspire innovation, offer new consumer experiences, and gain brand differential, leading to new commercial opportunities and increased sales with current and alternative consumer groups. It can lead to cost-saving and cost-avoidance opportunities, increasing the resilience of the business to external shocks and future legislations.
It can reinvigorate a business’ purpose, increasing connection, loyalty and brand recognition with employees, customers and society as a whole, allowing for valuable partnerships with start-ups, business coalitions and institutions.
What makes us different?
We help our clients to overcome these pressures and take advantage of opportunities. We support you to answer questions like:
What innovation is required to seize new income opportunities that are opening up in the market, driven by consumer choice? What are the new segments in the market that are available to me?
How could I change my business model to influence the sustainable consumption of my products and services, while simultaneously improving my financial outcomes?
How do I change my raw material consumption, processes and distribution models to improve my environmental and social impact along the value chain? And what type of partnerships do I need to make it a reality?
How can I seize new opportunities in material innovation or technology to reduce my cost base?
How can I best adjust to national and international sustainability legislation, adopting key principles and measures that will make my business model more resilient to change?
How can I embed sustainability thinking as a priority throughout my organization, and make it part of daily and strategic decision making?
What innovation is required to seize new income opportunities that are opening up in the market, driven by consumer choice? What are the new segments in the market that are available to me?
How could I change my business model to influence the sustainable consumption of my products and services, while simultaneously improving my financial outcomes?
How do I change my raw material consumption, processes and distribution models to improve my environmental and social impact along the value chain? And what type of partnerships do I need to make it a reality?
How can I seize new opportunities in material innovation or technology to reduce my cost base?
How can I best adjust to national and international sustainability legislation, adopting key principles and measures that will make my business model more resilient to change?
How can I embed sustainability thinking as a priority throughout my organization, and make it part of daily and strategic decision making?
How do we help?
We achieve tangible results by considering your reality in depth and applying a bespoke and deliverable solution.
Your reality – We translate what sustainability means for you:
Sustainability is a broad, complex topic where business needs and opportunities vary. Our starting point is always to understand your specific situation.
We help you build a tailored approach considering your strategic objectives, culture, and moment in the sustainability journey.
An integrated approach – We integrate sustainability in the wider business solution:
We work together with our functional and industry experts to make sustainability integral to our recommended business solutions, never a standalone topic.
Solving sustainability issues is often bigger than one company, we can help you identify and create multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Solution-oriented – We build strategies with implementation in mindWe have a robust but pragmatic approach to reviewing specific issues and opportunities in each step of your value chain.
We build strategies in collaboration with your teams, to make sure all stakeholders are on board from the design to implementation, guaranteeing a smooth transformational process.
SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY –
DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY AT THE CORE
DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY AT THE CORE
Sustainability Strategy: development of a robust sustainability approach which addresses the risks and leverages the opportunities specific to the industry, outlining priorities and capability requirements
Circular Economy Business Models: definition of the most efficient and profitable way to return a product and/or its packaging to you through a reversed value chain, to leverage its value, and to be re-used, remanufactured, or recycled
SUCCESS STORIES
CHALLENGE
The approach towards plastic packaging is changing rapidly as consumers, society and governments see the impacts of virgin plastics and are increasingly applying pressure for more sustainable solutions. Even though alternative packaging solutions are coming to the market, plastic recycling is expected to be an important part of the solution in the short to mid-term.
Our client, a leading petrochemical company, and one of the biggest producers of virgin plastic polymers needed to define its strategy to enter the recycled plastics value chain to stay relevant whilst the demand for virgin plastics declines.
APPROACH
Moving to a Circular Economy model requires a reversed logistics chain of waste generators, collectors, and recycling companies working together. The dynamics of this reversed chain vary significantly per geography and good information on value chain operations or quantitative data is often lacking.
To understand the plastic recycling landscape and determine the most suitable model for our client, Integration visited and assessed multiple players in each step of the chain, understanding their operating model, volumes, margins, and service level including how they secure a constant availability of waste flows.
RESULT
We worked with the client to create a comprehensive business case to introduce a post-consumption recycled polymer to the market. Our due diligence supported them in selecting strong recycling partners which could deliver the required volume and quality level and they are now proceeding with a full implementation.
TALK TO US
GERARD SCHOOR
PARTNER
Sustainability is key for business, and it is also a topic that requires cooperation – whether that is within your organization, with 3rd parties or across an ecosystem. We believe we can be a strong partner for our clients because we know how to build together across complex stakeholder environments; bringing business knowledge, transformational skills and sustainability expertise together in our approach.