Making excellence a habit
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2021 is an important year for sustainability. The UK is set to host three important events with sustainability firmly on the agenda: a G7 Meeting in Cornwall, ISO’s 75th Anniversary General Assembly (part of ISO Week) in London and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.
BSI will play its part. We have a crucial role to play in supporting the government’s Net Zero agenda and providing guidance and standards to organizations who want to improve their sustainability performance.
But who are the individuals helping to ensure BSI can meet this challenge? Here are just two of them.
Meet the BSI team: Benet Northcote
Benet Northcote, recently-appointed Sustainability Strategy Consultant to BSI, started out in journalism and film-making. He first became interested in environmental issues when supporting the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
He says: “I got the environmental bug when I learned how much of an existential challenge climate change is - we’ve been largely ignoring it, but we can’t do that any longer.”
Benet worked with the Conservative Party on environmental issues before moving to Greenpeace UK as Chief Policy Advisor, working on policies around energy, transport and commodities. Then he acted as Deputy Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales for five years, assisting with issues such as food, farming and sustainability.
From Highgrove to the High Street
Benet’s next move was to John Lewis Partnership where he was responsible for Corporate Responsibility for seven years. This position encompassed internal matters such as operational health and safety, diversity and inclusion and employee wellbeing, in addition to more familiar sustainability issues across both John Lewis and Waitrose.
Benet thinks BSI’s approach to standards development could be applied to make rapid progress on environmental problems:
“We need to tell the world that voluntary, consensus-based standards can accelerate global progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. BSI is a trusted partner that knows how to bring people together in a safe space to have an honest conversation.”
Meet the BSI team: Amanda Kiely
Amanda Kiely is Head of Group Sustainability at BSI. She started out as an Environmental Consultant, making a name for herself at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Amanda was responsible for ensuring the sustainability of key elements of the Games at a time when sustainability was still seen as an optional extra, rather than an essential requirement.
She says: “My primary focus was the cultural events leading up to and including the Closing Ceremonies, providing sustainability advice, and sourcing suppliers that could help deliver the most sustainable Games. One such outcome was having full traceability for the Olympic and Paralympic medals and UK-grown flowers for the medal ceremonies. The main task was changing people’s mindsets so they took action to reduce environmental impacts.”
Olympic inspiration
The 2012 Olympics inspired ISO 20121 - the Sustainable Events standard – which helps to reduce the environmental and social impacts of events. Amanda’s team contributed to the development of the standard, and she was so impressed that she joined BSI when the Olympics project was wrapped up.
“I saw for myself how ISO 20121 made a difference both in our own organization and in our supply chain. A supplier audit would pick up a health and safety issue - something as simple as not having a first aid kit - and corrective action would be taken that made a difference to the people working in that factory. It was powerful to witness.”
That was eight years ago, and, in that time, Amanda has progressed through the organization to become Head of Group Sustainability. The vision is to accelerate change by codifying best practice so organizations of any size can make progress on carbon reduction:
“We’ve gone past the point of protecting the environment, now we need to talk about restoring it. Standards that support sustainable development can help get us there.”
BSI’s role in sustainability
As Amanda says: “For the long-term health of your business, you can’t afford not to look at sustainability. We’re working towards a more circular, sustainable economy that is less focused on quickfire, quarterly results and more focused on the long term.”
Some of Amanda’s thinking will be on display at BSI’s The Future Has Begun Exhibition to be held at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London this summer. This will focus on themes of the future of work, plastic waste, artificial intelligence, consumer protection and sustainable finance. The exhibition content will explain the impact people can make on sustainable development using standards.
Finding consensus, creating standards
BSI has a wealth of expertise and knowledge in-house through its experts and committee members. These people are skilled in helping to steer standards through the development process and achieve concrete results, despite stakeholders often having very different perspectives.
As Benet says: “Standards are forged with a lot of heat and effort and noise. The consensus process is hard, but produces good results.”
BSI people like Benet and Amanda will continue to play a vital role in standards development on sustainability this year and beyond. If you’d like to help produce the next generation of standards that address climate change, why not consider joining a standards-making committee?
What can BSI members do to promote sustainability?
Every organization should be asking what it can do to promote sustainability and reduce carbon emissions. Here are some pointers that might help your efforts:
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