The power of systems thinking for a sustainability strategy with Alison Puente, Director, Project Rome

This week on the Beautiful Business podcast,  join our host Yiuwin Tsang and guest Alison Puente from Project Rome as they investigate how systems thinking offers a holistic approach to understanding and resolving complex sustainability challenges.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into how systems thinking can inform sustainable business practices, policymaking, and community engagement. Alison highlights the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches, stressing the need for stakeholders from different sectors to work together in designing and implementing effective solutions.

About Alison Puente

Alison Puente is an expert in corporate communications, with 25 years of experience working across a range of industries including FMCG, healthcare, retail, technology and utilities. She has led corporate, brand and business-to-business campaigns for organisations ranging from FTSE businesses to start-ups, working with clients including Associated British Foods, Centrica plc, Essity, Grant Thornton, Microsoft, the NHS, Quorn and Taylors of Harrogate/Yorkshire Tea.

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Transcript

Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.   Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.

Yiuwin Tsang  

Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and softly grown. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the beautiful business podcast. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the beautiful business team. And this week, I was joined by Alison Puente. Alison is the director of Project Rome. Project Rome offers strategic advice and practical support to organisations determined to thrive and grow stronger. They specialise in the sectors of retail FMCG healthcare and health tech and utilities. They believe in having a net positive impact on the world. And their guiding principle is to give more to the world and they take from it. Alison is an expert in corporate communications and sustainability with 27 years experience working across a range of industries including FMCG healthcare, retail technology and utilities. She has led corporate brand and business to business campaigns for organisations ranging from footsie 100 businesses, to startups and helps companies to develop and communicate sustainability strategies and roadmaps. She works closely with the executive teams of her clients to help them understand how to incorporate sustainability into their organisations, and how to use communications to build their reputations and profiles, expand their businesses and maximise value. Alongside her project room work. Alison is a trustee of leads based charity behind closed doors, and serves on the advisory board for Leeds University Business School. It was a wonderful chat that we had, I hope you enjoy the interview as much as I did. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Alison, let's talk about the power of systems thinking for a sustainability strategy. I'm a big fan of systems thinking, I think it's just the way the brain works. I think it's the logic. It's the knowing what needs to come next. It's that kind of planning that needs to come together with it. But in your mind, why is it that businesses need to think at this kind of holistic level when it comes to sustainability and their strategy?

Alison Puente  

So I think traditionally, US sustainability has kind of grown up and come out of CSR, which I hate that. But companies and you see it in the way they report and the way they sort of operate, they tend to think of sustainability as a sort of pillars. So you have environment, you have people, you have community. And I think partly, the reason for that is particularly when you take ESG, which is environmental, social governance, which is the way that listed companies sort of report on sustainability, it almost forces them into those pillars. And actually, those pillars make no sense because how can you have an environmental strategy without looking at the social impacts of what you're doing to the planet within climate? How can you look at the investments, you're making an impact you're having on local communities without thinking about how that will impact your people, and actually, vice versa. So, you know, looking at diversity and inclusion within your employee base, often companies struggle to actually even have a diverse set of candidates that they're recruiting from. And so they need to invest in their communities to help more diverse candidates coming through in order to then create more diversity within the business. So increasingly, we've realised, and we're trying to help businesses realise that if they look at this holistically, they will have a much bigger impact. It's what is it the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? And actually, you cannot possibly look at those different elements in a silo because each of them are intrinsically linked. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Yeah, indeed. And I think that's what I'm kind of hearing out of that is that you can take it in even the whole concept of looking at in pillars says, you know, these are these other sections to think about and think about it within this kind of section, you have this kind of like, almost like a get wise view of just what's in front of you. And I remember going along to a talk in Serbia, actually, years and years ago, I was organised by British Council, and one of the speakers there, and he was so articulate English wasn't his first language, but he clearly had better vocabulary than I did. And he would talk about how when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And that kind of Hillard kind of thinking makes you think like that. So if you're just in your kind of environmental pillar or just in your community pillar, you disregard the interdependencies, as you say, kind of come across. 

Alison Puente  

Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, particularly for businesses as they're trying to justify investments in sustainability, being able to understand that the classic example is community spending. So being able to understand the investments that you make in the community, yes, it's the right thing to do. Yes, it might be helping charities, but actually, that can have a direct impact on sort of fundamental things that you're struggling with as a business. So as again, you know, access to talent, for example. And when I talk about that with clients, you kind of see this light bulb go on, where they realise that Oh, hang on. So that's not the kind of nice forgive the language but sort of fluffy part that sits over there actually, the community spend and it can means investment can deliver intrinsic value into the business as well as being a nice thing to do. And I think that also as well as delivering more value, it also helps to actually get initiatives across the line where, espere when you're dealing with large organisations, where they've got to really justify spend to, you know, the CFO, for example. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Yeah, indeed. And I guess that the commercial weigh up needs to be done, I think in any sort size of organisation is probably a lot more complex and more hoops to kind of jump through with the larger organisations. But even with, you know, companies that are, you know, 50 employees size, there still needs to be that kind of financial justification, but I guess, yeah, on a individual siloed perspective is quite hard to make that equation work. Whereas if you take that holistic approach, and you see the imagine it's almost like this network effect across, you know, the different pillars that helped to justify that kind of commercial imperative. Yeah, exactly. That Exactly. And in terms of how you link those impact areas to drive that commercial performance and the commercial impact. Allison, how do you do that? When you talk with the clients? What kind of conversations do you have? What do you do to link up the impact areas to the commercial areas? 

Alison Puente  

Gosh, I'm trying to think how we actually do this in a way that I can articulate. So I think one thing that is really important is to start with where the risks exist for the business and where the challenges exist for the business and work from there. So rather than going, Okay, again, you know, starting in those kind of pillars, and looking at what we want to do environmentally, it's looking at what is material to the organisation? So where are the biggest impacts? Where are the biggest risks? Where are the biggest challenges? And then working from there to understand, okay, so if this, I don't know, let's say, emissions are a big issue for a company, they've got significant sort of impact there? What can we do across the different areas to impact that particular risk? So I think it's starting with the business problem, which sounds obvious, but often isn't what is done with sustainability? And then working from there as to Okay, so how do we address this through the entire sort of approach? And then also going, okay, so if emissions are your challenge, this is what we need to do environmentally. But how can we then link that to community investments, so for example, maybe it's working with local education institutions to look at other innovation that we can work on with them to help address this emissions problem? So I think it's just working through if this is the issue, if this is the kind of obvious direct solution that we need to drive, how can the other elements of your sustainability strategy contribute to that and all sort of link together? 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Oh, that's interesting. It really, really does. And it's really interesting, because I think you're right, I think the typical maybe approach to sustainability is almost thinking about, you know, what do we want to achieve in the sustainability context? What does he said, what's our kind of fluffy vision, which I still feel is important, because it's, you know, that's what galvanises people it's, you know, part of your attraction as an employer, for example. So things like the military pledge, which was a lovely initiative settled by Marcus Hensley, and Tim over funded partnership, and some others, I think these kind of aspirational things are super important, but from what you're saying, from a system thinking perspective, looking at what risks what are the material risks? And I suppose with some organisations, what are the existential risks that are linked to these sustainability problems? Be they environmental, be they social be their governance?  And then from that, looking at how that maps across the 

Alison Puente  

Yeah, exactly. And I completely agree, you know, we think a lot about purpose driven organisations and increasingly, organisations, whatever their size, we're understanding the value of being a purpose driven organisation. And I think it absolutely needs to start with, you know, what is our purpose? Why are we here? How are we wanting to deliver value beyond financial value? So what does value mean for our particular organisation? And what can be a kind of rallying cry and a motivating cry for us as an organisation, but at the end of the day, there will be some organisations who and you know, I mean, Patagonia is always the example that's given that just make decisions based on that purpose. And I mean, that is amazing. But at the moment, they are very much the exception. So how can we reconcile our purpose and what motivates us and drives us? And what is the right thing to do with actually delivering better more efficiently as a business? Because if you can bring those two together, then you know, you're golden really, aren't you? And whereas I think when if you have a purpose, but actually, you can't quite work out how to reconcile that with your commercial requirements, it becomes quite difficult. So for me, if the two can dovetail and you can bring them together, and your purpose and your business plan worked together beautifully, then that just makes it easy to drive through and makes it easy to get all of your different stakeholders on board. And I think increasingly that is the way that sustainability plans will need to work. That value will need to be thought of in a lot broader way. So it becomes more than financial but equally, sustainability won't be this kind of plan that sits at the side. That is a nice thing to do. It's actually incorporated throughout some of your sustainability plan won't have a direct impact on commercial plan but where it can it absolutely should, because at the end of the day that will allow you to make more investments into it, you know, if you make more money, you can invest more in sustainability. So I think there can be a misconception that commercial sides almost a sort of the dirty piece, and it's whereas, you know, it should all just be altruistic. And I feel very strongly that yes, absolutely, altruism has to be part of it. But it has to also help business be sustainable, which means sustainable commercially, as well as environmentally socially. Yeah. 100%, our belief that beautiful businesses that profit is what fuels your journey to creating Yes, to fulfilling your purpose. And the reality is, it's gonna be really hard to make any sort of imprint on your purpose and your kind of mission, if you want to have cash.

Yiuwin Tsang  

That is ultimate, what is that what I'm finding really interesting in this discussion is linking the impact areas holistically with the risks that business faces, because that that to me, is, as I say, as that kind of flip over side, but it makes so much sense now that I think about it. I guess the other part is that it's almost like the corporate FOMO, your fear of missing out if we don't do these things, then this is what could happen. And it's almost like the negative impact is a key motivator to sorting it out if that kind of makes sense. So taking it in a risk context, almost, you know, I guess the ideal scenario will be looking at sustainability in a risk context, as well as in the gains context as well, and having the two running kind of parallel to each other.

Alison Puente  

 Absolutely. Yeah. It's always carrot and stick, isn't it? Yeah. And that's exactly it, I think is looking at if we link these different elements, if we look at this as a systems approach, what value can we drive? And as you've said, What risks can we mitigate? And how can we have as almost a multiplier effect across those by looking at this as a single system? And how can we, if we link these different elements, how can we generate more value, as I said, so that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, I mean, even if you look just within an environment, for example. So there's now an increasing awareness. And again, it's so obvious when you look at it that you can't just look at emissions separately to impact on nature, because if you destroy habitat up, then you're absorbing less carbon from the air, and therefore there's a greater impact on emissions. So the way that the world is thinking, and the way that compliance is moving is that even within one pillar, different elements are being now connected. Whereas previously, within the pillars, you'd have separate elements, I think it was just a way for people to organise their thinking and be able to report in a clear way, but it doesn't work. And it doesn't create that kind of positive overall effect. So I think we will increasingly see this kind of approach start to be applied the challenges, then when you do need to report that how you do that in a way that is clear, which is probably the next gap. And that will ask companies helping clients to communicate this stuff that we'll need to deal with. Yeah, it's about putting that cohesion together in terms of what you're doing. And in terms of the impact that you're making and tying together cross pillar holistically again, it kind of comes up and doing it in as you say, in such a way, which I suppose is manageable in the first instance. And then you can report you can measure and improve upon optimise. Yeah, and the second sort of way. Yeah, I guess the other challenge there is, as you look at bigger organisations, and you talked about a 50 personal protection, I kind of think of that as a big organisation, because I operate in an organisation where there's four of us that if even, you know, you're sort of 3050 people, organisations, often these different elements have been looked at by different departments. So you've got your facilities management team, looking at how you can reduce environmental impact, you've got your HR team, looking at colleagues. So you then need to start bringing together these kind of cross functional groups to work together, which again, it's more difficult. So I think having somebody who's looking at across all of this, as you said, in a holistic way will be absolutely critical, because otherwise, people just keep doing what they're doing in their own kind of silos and won't necessarily be able to step back and understand how these different elements can work cohesively. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners, Krystal Hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services super fast and super reliable. And they're genuinelly really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners at Beautiful Business. And we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them. 

Alison Puente  

It's lots of fun, what I'm taking these sorts of planning lots of thought as well. And I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing that we're moving away from CSR being you know, this office at the end of the hall where, you know, really nice people kind of go in and they spend some money here there and they do some nice presentations at the end of the month.

Yiuwin Tsang  

We've been there and I've worked with some absolutely lovely CSR teams in the past back then it felt like they were the outliers. They were the ones that were having to battle to justify their existence and I feel like that tide has changed, which is a really good thing, but I feel like the same problems still exist. There is a bit justification that needs to be made. And then there is that coordination, there is that reporting that needs to be pulled together. And I guess that's that whole part of the system's thinking part, I guess in terms of putting these ideas and strategies and processes into action. So what kind of frameworks or systems have you used with your clients to I guess, first of all, the framework that you create? And then I guess the second part of that is the selling in of this kind of systems, holistic thinking to stakeholders? 

Alison Puente  

I was just reflecting on what you just said, actually, the fact that CSR people seemed as sort of like outliers, and I was on a depressing chain on LinkedIn the other day where people were talking about the fact that when you are still in house as a sustainability lead, it's very, very difficult. So I think this is definitely still a work in progress. So how do we approach this, we're only starting really, to drive this kind of thinking through I think Systems Thinking is absolutely there to sort of academic level. But it's only just starting, I think, to percolate through. So you'd see fantastic organisations like IKEA, for example, really apply systems thinking across their business and across the different areas. But I think for most organisations, this is kind of like a bit mind blowing. So again, I suppose what we start by doing is looking at what's material to the business? So where are the material risks and opportunities for them? And also, what do their stakeholders see as the most material and by stakeholders? That might be employees? It might be investors, it might be customers, consumers? So starting with, okay, where actually are your impacts? Where could we add value, where the opportunities, what are the risks, and then using that as a sort of starting point to develop a strategy. And I think I tend to think in quite a structured way. And it's quite difficult applying systems thinking into a structured way of organising a strategy and reporting on that. But I think, frankly, even if the different, you know, however, you actually sort of physical structure on the page, as long as the different elements link up, and you're able to talk about how they link up, that is probably as good a starting point, as any. So we'll create a framework. And I think it's important that that framework can then be sold in by the stakeholders within the business. So quite often, we want to create something that really works from a systems thinking approach. But clients looking at it going, I don't really understand this, it doesn't make logical sense to me. So we do need to make sure that it is structured in a way that not only will the kind of owner of that within the organisation stand, but also that they will be able to go and sort of sell in within their organisation. But then we just make sure that as we're communicating it, we're being really clear about how those different elements work together, and who needs to work together to make those different elements kind of work for the organisation, if that makes sense. I don't know if I'm sort of explaining that enough. But I don't think that there is a straightforward answer at the moment, because you are trying to do it in a way that is genuinely impactful that genuinely reflects systems thinking, but also brings people with you and doesn't try and impose this completely new way of thinking on through an organisation that's not ready for it. I think, certainly, that is, I'm still surprised at how early a lot of this thinking is within organisations. I think, you know, if you take smaller, genuinely purpose driven organisations that especially with a lot of young people within the organisation, that there's a different starting point, they absolutely get it, where you've got larger organisations that have probably been around for years, this is a transition for them, this is a change. And often, even if it's owned, sustainability is owned at executive team level, it is often seen as the responsibility of one person versus the responsibility of the entire organisation. So there is a lot of work to do to kind of operationalize this and almost embed it, even if the starting point is absolutely the right place, and the business is wanting to do the right thing, they often don't understand quite how much is involved in that and quite how much they're going to have to reengineer the way the business works. So I think the smaller and the newer the organisation a lot of cases, the easier it is. But I mean with government regulation is going to be increasingly an issue for people, as is I hope, consumer behaviour as is for larger organisations, investor requirements. So I think there'll be that kind of those drivers that will force organisations to change as well as the need to attract you know, young people who care about this, and for whom, you know, they're only going to work organisations that they feel have a genuine purpose and wants to do good in the world. 100% It's another competition all together to talk about attracting talent. And it's not just about pounds, shillings and pence anymore at all, you know, the goalposts have changed. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

I'm just reflecting on everything that you just said there. And again, really interesting, and it does make a lot of sense. There's a few people in the network who are applying for B Corp status. And one of them who is a big champion of B Corp is a recruitment firm, and his business was certified after being established for a decade or longer. He said it was really hard. It was really, really hard, even though the intent was there. And he said, certifying his new recruitment company, which sister recruitment company was much easier because it's just from the off, it was easy to kind of go down that way. I feel like part of that reason is because with the more established organisation by definition, the more established so a lot of them processes a lot of the way that they do things is established. And I guess that first hurdle of having intent is there, which is great because it needs to start somewhere, as you say. But I suppose there's that letting go of the status quo, how we've always done it, it's deeply uncomfortable for organisations to do that, even if they know they have to, even if they know they want to the actual doing of it can be really, really hard. For example, you touched on it earlier on, but that diversity, equity and inclusion piece, you know, little things like, not including the names or gender on CVS and things like this, so that you have more all of these things. And that's even a pretty mild start, if you need to positively discriminate in order to balance ethnicity or gender within the organisation, then again, as I say, compared to how things used to be done, it's really different. And it's that old adage, where people are more comfortable with old problems than they are with new solutions. 

Alison Puente  

Yes, what you do if you actually don't have the people coming through, even, you know, once you kind of got rid of any unconscious bias in your screening process, in your interview process, that then you're just not getting a diverse talent pool, because people have been excluded from whatever industry you happen to be in. And I think that's where I mean that for me, that is often the starting point where I talk to clients about systems thinking, it's saying, What can we do within communities, what can we do with local charities with local education institutions to really address that, and it may not come through for another 10 or 20 years in terms of the impact, but it will solve a business challenge. And it will solve a societal challenge in the communities that are around you. And I think that's a really powerful example, because you know, a lot of organisations are dealing with Josh's of talent, or a lack of diversity within their organisation within the talent pool. So I think that's a really good example of where applying systems thinking you can really see where you could make a significant change within your impacts and DT just to kind of touch on briefly it for me, I feel like it's that shift away from the immediate term consideration into the longer term kind of consideration. And as you say, it's that slow, but definitive change, I feel like there's probably a saying for it isn't there, that perfection being the block to progress. And it's like this kind of I want it to happen now. And in reality, you can't change things immediately, you can make changes immediately. But the effect of the change might be years, or even, as you say, decades down the line. But it's that requirement to make the change in the first place. Yeah, and you do see organisations just be kind of frozen, really by the perceived scale of what they need to do, and not knowing where to start. And I think it's like anything, if you can choose sort of starting places and start to take it in bite sized chunks and actually deliver smaller impacts that allow companies to see that oh, okay. So if we start to do this, it can make a positive difference, before you tackle the big kind of systemic issues that they might be facing, then, you know, that's a good way to kind of bring them with you. I mean, B Corp is a great example. Because it's challenging, and it looks at everything, you know, an organisation might think, Oh, we're pretty good. But then they realise that, okay, we've got to look at who we bank with. And we've got to look how our employees get to work. And actually, there isn't another way for them to get to where that's not kind of going to create a lot of emissions. And then Okay, so what do we do? How do we help them with that and looking at, I was talking to a client the other day about the people policies, and they were saying that they've realised that if they give their employees cost of living boosts bonuses, which they really want to do, that will tip some of those employees over the threshold, and they won't be able to claim welfare benefits, or, you know, because this is an organisation that has a lot of people on minimum wage. And so they think they're doing to help, actually, it's then going to start discounting them from tax credits and everything else. So it's not simple. It's really it is very complex, but I mean, the cops brilliant, because it just gives you that kind of very rigorous process to go through and it breaks it right down, doesn't it?

Yiuwin Tsang  

Yeah, the assessment tool. Yes. And the assessment tool is always worth on even if you're not intending to do because it's such a lovely list of things of areas of kind of impact is the all the little blocks that you can start kind of building up with, but to your point about organisations taking steps I think this is it. And I think this is perhaps for me, it feels like that kind of secondary kind of movement that needs to happen. We've got that initial movement, people want to make positive change, and be that driven from a altruistic from a kind of progressive perspective, or even from a commercial perspective, attracting the best talent, getting the customers on board, getting the investment money, and whatever the driver is, movement is in the right direction. My feeling is the secondary one is understanding and the acceptance isn't a binary thing. It can't just be like, you know, you've got to be perfectly green net zero. And on the off, there's a process and it's about starting that process. 

Alison Puente  

Yeah, completely. And actually, it's okay if you start that process, and then you have to change goalposts Are you have to redo something or you have to realise that you can't do something that you set out to do as long as you're transparent about it and honest about it and explain why that has to change. That's okay. Because I think a lot of organisations are scared to start the journey or to put something out in case that then changes. But I mean, it will. The fact is, nobody knows Net Zero is a great example. Because so many organisations have no idea how they're going to hit net zero by 2040 2050, or whatever it is, we know we're going to have to, but we don't have to get there. And so in my opinion, it's better to just go for it, create a pathway, figure it out. And then if you need to change that pathway or the goalposts along the way, that's okay. People will understand that. But I think there's a natural fear of that, again, particularly from listed companies who if you set a goal, you have to hit it, or else you know, you're in trouble. It's not the same in this field. And there is a lot of I think there's a lot of leeway in understanding for things to change and evolve, as long as you're honest about it. Brilliant advice. Absolutely. Good advice. I think I just say listed companies, there's a load of problems out there, you know,

Alison Puente  

the whole kind of quarterly reporting thing as well to say, well, you know, it's almost like their decision making is chunked into three months. You know, it's so short term. And as you've said, This is not short term. And we work with listed companies, and it is a real challenge. And how do you help them justify investments that aren't going to pay off for is when they're doing that kind of short term, quarterly annual reporting, it's, it's not easy. It's crazy. It's crazy. But I guess it comes back again, to that framework, but a holistic framework about how you link impact to risks and opportunities. And I suppose that's the framework, that's the framework that you come back to. And as you say, if you need to adjust the plan, if you need to change the course, then that, again, will be in line with the risk and opportunity that the business faces. Yeah, and I mean, one really useful piece of advice that I got was to incorporate sustainability plans into an overall and this this could be for any organisation, no matter how big or small into the overall commercial plan. So traditionally, it's either sustainability as either been a separate plan, or advisors might get organisations to completely change their commercial plan. And actually, if you can look at commercial plans and business plans, and link what you are telling them to do, advising them to do on the sustainability for an into what they need to do commercially, you're talking their language, and it suddenly just becomes part of how they do business versus this thing that you're kind of trying to crowbar in. That, to me was a real kind of lightbulb moment. So that's the approach that we try and take with clients like we'll create a sustainability strategy. But then let's look at how we can incorporate that into how you work day to day and your commercial goals that you've already sort of communicated to whoever it is, so that that idea of value and risk links to core business versus being kind of separate area that it's all too easy to ignore or kind of ditch you know, when times get tough. 

Yiuwin Tsang  

Thank you so much to Alison Puente from Project Rome for joining us on this week's beautiful business podcast. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your ideas and your experiences. Thank you for joining us for this week's beautiful business podcast. Beautiful business as a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at WWW. beautiful business.uk