It is important for any company starting its journey towards net-zero or even-zero emissions to understand that, for a sustainability strategy to hold any water, the business needs to break down silos “quite aggressively”, independent sustainability, remuneration, tax, governance and law consultant Anelisa Keke has said.

She was speaking as part of an expert panel in a webinar titled ‘From Zero to Net Zero’ hosted by Creamer Media on behalf of Remote Metering Solutions (RMS), on March 18.

The webinar sought to unpack how transparent disclosures can unlock financing opportunities, enhance stakeholder confidence and accelerate the transition to net-zero emissions.

It also explored the practical steps that organisations can take to move beyond commitments and drive real, measurable progress towards net zero.

“The demand for credible, standardised and investment-grade sustainability disclosures is growing among stakeholders, from investors to tenants, from regulators to customers . . . and they want to see measurable and significant progress,” RMS chief commercial officer Frikkie Malan said.

The webinar also explored the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) S1 and IFRS S2, as issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) under the IFRS Foundation. These standards serve as a global baseline for sustainability reporting and aim to enhance transparency, consistency and comparability in corporate sustainability disclosures, ensuring investors and stakeholders receive reliable, decision-useful information.

“Some companies will task a specific department to oversee sustainability and that department . . . just focusses on what sustainability looks like insofar as their department is concerned, as opposed to looking across the business, including looking at the governance aspect, [which means] looking at the shared services and the extent to which they need to incorporate sustainability. As such, you tend to find that siloed thinking does creep in,” Keke cautioned.

She advised that, when setting a net-zero target or embarking on a net-zero journey, businesses should be cautious about “copying and pasting” what their peers are doing.

“It's about clearly defining what is net zero in your world, what you're trying to achieve and what is the business rationale behind your net-zero target?”

“If you're not clear as to the business rationale for going down this path, you will struggle to get buy-in, certainly internally, because people don't want to be compelled to all of a sudden start doing activities that are outside of the normal course and scope unless you give them a compelling reason as to why,” Keke explained.

She said it was crucial to be able to explain – with evidence – how and why embarking on the net-zero journey would be in the business's best interests. This would include explaining the problem statement and what it is you are trying to solve for, before aspiring to implement a solution.

“The first thing is to actually map out your business model, how your stakeholders fit into that business model and how it then feeds into your short-, medium- and long-term strategy.

“It [can be] quite an exercise to map out what the complete business model is across the organisation. If you don't do that, you can't move to the point where you start setting a strategy,” Keke explained.

She added that breaking down organisational silos required a multi-faceted approach.

This included ensuring that top-level executives champion sustainability as a cross-departmental initiative, not just a single team's responsibility. She suggested mapping out the entire business model to understand how different departments interconnected and were able to contribute to sustainability goals.

For the strategy to succeed, the development of a comprehensive communication strategy is crucial to explain the business rationale behind sustainability efforts to all stakeholders.

Keke said that creating integrated data platforms that allowed transparent information sharing across departments was also essential.

Further, it would be fruitful to collaboratively develop sustainability targets that required input and action from multiple departments, forcing cross-functional collaboration.

She added that training and awareness were also needed across the organisation to help employees understand how sustainability impacted their specific roles and the broader business strategy.

Finally, performance metrics were needed, with sustainability objectives included in performance evaluations across different departments to incentivise collaborative efforts.

“The key is to make sustainability a strategic business imperative that everyone understands and feels responsible for, rather than a siloed, isolated initiative,” Keke said.

The webinar also featured inputs from RMS COO Ilse Swanepoel and Liberty 2 Degrees sustainability lead specialist Brian Unsted.