ESG in practice: diversity, inclusion and energy efficiency as drivers of change

Promoting diversity and inclusion, reducing waste and deploying energy efficient technologies are the top three areas of focus for ESG firms in the office sector, according to ABSL’s latest survey. Under the new rules, some companies are required to report their performance under ESG reporting from this January, and this will be extended to other entities by 2026. According to the ABSL, 88% of IT and business services companies have committed to sustainable strategies in recent years, putting them ahead of the curve in meeting their targets.

Diversity and inclusion in the lead

A new ABSL survey shows that diversity and inclusion directly characterize the industry. There are 90 nationalities working in the industry, 66% of centres are dedicated to the inclusion of individuals with disabilities, 73% of centres have policies to support parents on or after parental leave, around a quarter of firms are stepping up recruitment of the 55+ age group and half have programmes to support the LGBTQ+ community. In addition, 42% of senior management are women, which puts the sector well above the Czech and even European average. According to the Deloitte Women in Leadership study, the Czech Republic’s 17.2% representation of women in leadership lags behind both the global (19.7%) and European (30.7%) average.

“Our latest survey has once again confirmed that the IT and business services industry has diversity literally in its DNA. However, the bottom line is that not only employee teams but also senior management are made up of diverse groups,”

says Jonathan Appleton, Director of ABSL, highlighting the fact that this is the reason why the centres are achieving excellent results in terms of innovation and efficiency and have been growing dynamically for two decades.

How to protect the environment?

As well as excelling in the ‘S’ part of the ESG, the industry also performs excellently in the ‘E’, environmental, area. In this area, according to the survey, companies most often implement waste reduction as their first step towards environmental protection (83%). A high 76% of companies then invest in energy-efficient equipment and technology, and almost half of respondents (48%) express a demand for “green” buildings and offices, while also asking for sustainable practices from their suppliers (45%).
Interest in green offices is also confirmed by Colliers.

“ESG is now a topic for virtually all companies that are redesigning existing space or requesting new office space. They want them to comply with modern requirements for materials used, use of renewable energy, carbon footprint, waste management, healthy working environment or water efficiency,”

says Jana Vlková, Director of Workplace Advisory and Office Agency at Colliers, adding that projects that meet the current ESG requirements to the maximum extent possible include the PORT7 project by Skanska in Prague 7 or the Hagibor project by Crestyl. However, when creating their ESG reports, Jana Vlková says companies often find that they do not have enough information about their buildings and their performance.

Analysing data to save money

However, the SAP Services Innovation and Business Services Centre in Prague has easily dealt with this – they have developed a simple tool called the Sustainability dashboard, which is built on SAP Analytics Cloud technology and can track water and energy consumption and convert it into the amount of CO2 generated. This monitoring can reveal a range of interesting information, such as where energy is being wasted. The building management team can then use this data to react to abnormal values and pass the measurement results to head office for the preparation of the global annual ESG report. In addition to water and energy, the tool in SAP Services will also track the amount of waste generated in offices, and in the future the company plans to monitor the carbon footprint in connection with company cars.

Energy efficient technologies reduce impacts and costs

In an effort to reduce environmental impact and enhance sustainability, companies are also increasingly turning to energy-efficient technologies. In addition to efficient building heating and cooling systems or intelligent lighting systems, energy-efficient data storage and management solutions are also coming to the fore. The reason is obvious, data centres are responsible for 1-2% of all energy consumption and their energy requirements will continue to grow due to the huge increase in data volumes. Storage typically accounts for around 20% of this. Pure Storage has come up with an interesting solution in this area, enabling its customers to significantly reduce both energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions with its flash-based data storage solutions. In fact, its storage arrays can hold more data in a smaller footprint than traditional storage products, which means they can deliver up to an 85% reduction in energy consumption compared to competing products. This aspect is becoming increasingly important in the context of the dramatic increase in unstructured data.

ABSL (Association of Business Service Leaders in the Czech Republic) is an association of companies operating in the shared business services sector, which represents a strong generator of employment in the Czech Republic. ABSL was established in 2013 to foster companies in the business services sector, share best practices and help to develop the activities of its members and other entities operating in this segment. At the same time, ABSL provides support to foreign investors who want to establish their business services centres in the Czech Republic. Currently, there are nearly 400 centres in the Czech Republic employing 160,000 people. For more information, please visit www.absl.cz.