How organisations can drive efficiency with sustainability

Through sustainability, organisations can achieve similar benefits, including sustainable resource use, reduced waste and pollution, operational and energy efficiency, circularity, and cost containment.

In addition, the impact of technology on an organisation cannot be ignored in these areas, particularly when evaluating how emerging technologies drive efficiency.

As competition grows fiercer and more intense across industries, efficiency is one of the fundamental pillars of value creation that sustainability can deliver to organisations. One critical component of success for organisations this year is efficiency, and they should apply sustainability to achieve these goals by considering the following.

Organisations should conduct a baseline assessment of the resources used or required for productivity. This includes energy consumption, human resources, infrastructure, natural capital, and time.

Organisations should then perform a benchmarking exercise to assess how they stack up against similar operations in the market, including global best-in-class, and assess whether they have the right configuration to achieve their desired future operating model. This exercise will reveal two distinct gaps.

First, the inefficiencies that may exist within current operations, after careful study, and second, the investment required to position the organisation favourably for the future from a competitive perspective.

Organisations can then map out a detailed roadmap with clear milestones to address these gaps, with a view to positioning themselves for success.

The importance of data during this entire process cannot be overemphasised. Organisations will have to analyse accurate and complete data to aid their decision-making and should employ internal assurance processes to provide comfort on the accuracy and completeness of the data.

Another important element across the efficiency drive using sustainability is the application of technology. Organisations should consider how technology increases productivity, reduces costs, and drives operational efficiency.

Baselining exercises required for sustainability reporting should not end at compliance but be seen as the beginning of a journey towards achieving efficiency for long-term competitive advantage.

Akinyemi Awodumila is a Partner at PwC Kenya. He is an author who writes and speaks widely on corporate reporting topics.