Sustainability perspectives

Key insights

Objective: To understand organisations’ sustainability

agenda, their key priorities, challenges, initiatives, and
vision for future growth, while balancing business with
sustainability

Who did we speak to? Collaboration and innovation in the

Sustainability leaders/heads of
sustainability at leading organisations
across the FMCG, retail, textile, and
e-commerce sectors
Sustainability experts in India and
across the globe
What areas did we cover?
Sustainability agenda
Understanding the sustainability
imperatives for the organisation, its key
industry
stakeholders, and the articulated plans
Mapping of existing partnerships
to achieve these objectives
and collaboration, any innovation by
other organisations, and availability
Initiatives across measure, mitigate,
of platforms/services to support the
offset
sustainability agenda
Analysing approaches towards measure,
mitigate, and offset; understanding
challenges faced, initiatives launched,
technology adopted, standards followed,
and primary pain points
Sustainability perspectives: key insights

around double counting, additionality,

Key insights and
implications
Sustainability agenda
• While most companies are aware of
the need to enhance environmental
sustainability in their operations, they
are at varying levels of maturity on this
journey.
• Companies continue to face issues in
aligning their sustainability agenda with
business objectives with variations across
geographies and businesses being a key
challenge.
• Lack of awareness and sophistication
amongst supplier networks (key emission
contributors) remains an impediment
to companies looking to achieve their
sustainability targets.
• On-ground implementation is another
challenge. However, companies are
focusing on mutual benefits to foster
trust within stakeholders (e.g., local
communities and small suppliers) to drive
participation in achieving sustainability.
• Finally, from a consumer perspective,
companies experience (especially in India)
that while end consumers are advocates
of sustainability, they are rarely activists
for change.
Measure/mitigate/offset
permanence, etc.
• Mature companies typically do not face
significant issues in the measurement of
Collaboration and innovation in the
scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. However,
industry
measurement of scope 3 emissions
remains a challenge given the significant • While companies recognise the need
variability across external sources (e.g., to collaborate, there is a dearth of
suppliers). supporting stakeholder ecosystems.
• Given this variability, companies prefer • Unlike other developed markets, limited
using heuristics or “rules of thumb” to plug and play solutions are available to
estimate their scope 3 emissions, using support companies in their journey.
various tools.
• As companies move along the
sustainability maturity curve, they Contact us
typically adopt a mitigation-led strategy
as it enhances both sustainability and Harsh Kapoor
business benefits. Partner
Email: harshkapoor@deloitte.com
• On the other hand, adoption of offsets is
incidental for most companies − utilised
Inderjeet Singh
where emissions cannot be further
mitigated for technological or other Director
reasons. Email: inderjeets@deloitte.com
• Offsets can be a potential game changer.
However, without transparent price
discovery and interoperability across Acknowledgements
geographies, the number of takers is
limited. Avinash Nayak, Ayush Kanwar, Chahal Garg,
Rashna Engineer, and Aniket Lohia
• Another emerging trend is large
companies setting up their own offset
projects. This helps avoid issues

Imperatives for organisations

Adopt Create
Integrate Achieve direct
sustainability lens supply chain
climate risks and savings through
for business goals transparency and
opportunities in energy efficiency
and investment support suppliers
COVID-19 recovery and carbon
allocations to build in emission
efforts. reduction.
resilience. reduction.

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