On Wednesday 5th October, K2’s CEO, Nick Plummer, hosted a webinar to provide the K2 partner network with updates on the progress of the company’s sustainability programme, and our ongoing partnership with global sustainability ratings company, EcoVadis.
In addition to receiving updates from members of the K2 team, attendees heard from external panellists Samiya Hirji, from EcoVadis, and Giulio Argiró, from Bliss Moving Corporation.
K2’s sustainability commitments and the Kinetic plan
Sustainability is one of the key strategic priorities in our current (2022 – 2026) business plan, Kinetic. As part of the launch of the Kinetic plan, K2 set out ambitious goals with commitments including:
- Becoming a United Nations Global Compact participant
- Supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Submitting transparent annual reporting via our UNGC Communication on Progress (COP)
- Achieving Net Zero Scope 1 & 2 emissions by the end of 2023
- Working towards a 40% carbon footprint reduction through our supply chain
Our evolving partnership with EcoVadis and an invitation to our partners
EcoVadis work with over 100,000 businesses to monitor and improve the sustainability performance of their organisations and trading partners across the following areas: Environment, labour and human rights, ethics, sustainable procurement. Through evidence-based, expert validated ratings and actionable, universal scorecards, EcoVadis provide benchmarks, insights, and a guided improvement journey for environmental, social and ethical practices.
K2’s Global Head of Compliance & ESG, Linda Rafferty, comments:
“In order to effectively make an ongoing assessment of our sustainability credentials and progress, we knew we needed to partner with a sustainability ratings company. Selecting the right organisation was important, they needed to be a partner rather than just a service provider, and we wanted someone who was globally recognised and trusted, with high credibility.
We chose EcoVadis as they met all of these requirements. Our partnership with EcoVadis will not only support us to track our ongoing progress but, it has already helped us with the development of our sustainable procurement strategy and ensuring sustainability is integrated within our business practices.
We submitted our first assessment in September this year and are delighted to announce we have received a Silver Award.”
Earlier in 2022, 112 DSP and HHG service providers in the K2 partner network were invited to sign up to EcoVadis and complete an assessment, supported by K2.
Group Commercial Manager, Ken McCully, who leads on K2’s partner network programme, explains:
“By inviting our partners to sign up and complete an assessment, our partnership with EcoVadis will enable us to monitor the performance of our Global Accredited Partner Programme (GAPP) network. Our partner network is a powerful lever for reducing the sustainability impact of our business; and something we rely heavily on, as a global organisation, focused on moving people around the world. To date, 26 partners have completed an assessment and received their EcoVadis rating, with a further 7 in progress. We look forward to even more of our partners joining us on this path to industry-wide improvement.”
K2 Partner Webinar – a tool for partner communications
Keeping our partners up-to-date with our completed and work-in-progress actions offers the transparency required both to demonstrate our commitment to delivering on our sustainability goals and also to encourage partners to come on board. Running regular webinars also provides partners with the opportunity to ask questions and share best practice.
With Ken McCully acting as webinar facilitator, attendees were welcomed by Nick Plummer, before hearing from Group Sustainability Consultant, Paul Barnes, on the outcomes of the EY 2022 Sustainability & Global Mobility Benchmark Survey.
Next up was EcoVadis Account Manager for K2, Samiya Hirji, who spoke about the benefits for rated companies and offered an overview of the EcoVadis assessment process, with guidance on the type of documentation accepted plus how to effectively leverage the tools available to you.
Linda Rafferty then took attendees through the latest sustainability and ESG updates from K2, before sharing some of the types of questions K2 are seeing from clients as part of the RFP process.
Bliss Moving Corporation’s assessment journey
Giulio Argiró, Legal Adviser, Relocation and Immigration Manager at Bliss Corporation, offered some insight about the Bliss Corporation’s journey to a Platinum EcoVadis accreditation:
“When K2 invited us to sign up to EcoVadis, we immediately recognized that it was a fantastic opportunity to benchmark our sustainability credentials against competitors and other top performing companies within the GM industry worldwide.
The EcoVadis platform is a well-designed tool, which allowed us to obtain an objective assessment, identify where we are performing well, plus areas for improvement. Having experience gaining ISO accreditations, we were familiar with these types of evidence based evaluations, but recognized that collating the documentation required would be a challenging task, we put a dedicated team together to take responsibility for the assessment.
Whist we achieved a great result (a Platinum award with an overall score of 77) we want to do better and improve on this in the future. EcoVadis’s performance improvement tools allow us to understand where we need to focus our attention moving forward and we have already started working on a corrective action plan, looking to improve reporting on environmental issues and documenting actions on DE&I.”
Help and guidance – support for partners in 2023
Sustainability and ESG remain at the top of everyone’s agenda this year, with no signs of this changing in 2023. K2 will continue to support engaged partners in their sustainability journey and are on hand to offer any guidance through the EcoVadis assessment process as required, recognising that it is only through collaboration that we can truly make meaningful change.
You can watch the recording of our latest partner webinar here.
