Data from dashboards
7 October 2021
Here’s the problem.
You work in a larger organisation which needs to go green but how do you do so? What data do you require? And how do you obtain it, especially from those in your wider supply chain?
This is the challenge that a company called Ziena aims to address. It was founded last March by Josh Probert, whose career experience includes working for Hilti as an account manager in London. He went on to form his own business to develop a CRM (customer relationship management) system, and Ziena is a sister operation addressing sustainability issues.
“It all started when I followed a Carbon Literacy Project programme to learn more about the subject,” Josh told me. “It was clear that ESG (environmental, social and governance) was fast becoming a major business topic. And there’s now a distinct demographic group of people leaving university with specific degrees in sustainability and environmental management who are specialising in these areas.
“Indeed, the younger generation are now holding organisations to account, particularly consumer brands, and demanding they do more.
“However, there is a multitude of different frameworks and platforms available for gathering data, so I thought how great it would be if an organisation could effectively pick and choose different aspects applicable to them and develop specific solutions to drive systematic changes from the top down.”
Ziena can work with an organisation’s ESG department to identify the sort of data required and to help them educate their supply chain partners regarding sustainability, particularly amongst the SMEs (small to medium enterprises) they deal with.
“A business could, say, issue its SME suppliers with educational action advice explaining what is required of them and the resources that can be offered to them to develop their own sustainability strategies.”
The Site-Eco blog has previously mentioned the obligations for certain businesses to assess their carbon footprint in terms of Scope 1, 2 and 3 parameters that relate to direct and indirect emissions.
Ziena (www.ziena.co.uk) can develop online software and dashboards to collect required data effectively according to specific KPIs (key performance indicators) that a company’s suppliers can then complete in a way that’s as straightforward as possible.
This approach is known as an SaaS model, or software as a service, whereby software is licensed on a subscription basis and hosted centrally.
“You could also adapt this approach for other ESG issues like fair pay and modern slavery obligations,” said Josh. “The beauty is that you have all the information available in one source.”
Photo: Lukas/Pexels
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