(UP-TEMPO MUSIC)
More and more large businesses will be reporting...
on their sustainability policies and accomplishments.
This is coming from the European guideline Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive,
Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
the CSRD.
In the sustainability report there are three main themes...
environment, social and governance.
Privately held SME businesses won't be required to report,
but the SME might have to deal with the CSRD...
through questions about data from suppliers or customers.
Tanja Roeleveld of Lely and Cindy Goorts of CSU...
will explain how they deal with the CSRD.
Lely is a dutch family business.
We're active in the agricultural...
sector in about fifty countries,
so that's what our mission is focussed on.
A sustainable future for...
the current and future generations in agriculture.
Our goal is a sustainable, pleasant...
and profitable future for the dairy industry.
For those fifty countries we make innovative tech products...
for the dairy industry, so we can reduce impact on the environment,
improve animal welfare...
and realise a beautiful future for the agricultural business.
I work at Total Care and Total Care is...
the parent company of three businesses.
CSU, Tzorg, and Zizo.
CSU is the corporate cleaning service provider,
at Tzorg we offer help with housekeeping,
and Zizo is the little sister still and we offer private cleaning service.
At CSU we have about 15,000 corporate addresses we clean.
At Tzorg we visit around...
70,000 people every two weeks,
so we have a massive reach, in that respect.
We're a real dutch company,
a family business, sustainability has been in our genes from the get go.
CSRD, or the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive...
to us is a request to report transparantly...
about our sustainability achievements.
We actively started in 2023 by at the start of the year,
carrying out a double materiality analysis,
so we'd know...
which themes and subjects we should be reporting on.
Pretty soon after that,
in that same year, we formed a project group.
Multidisciplinary, so from sustainability, finance, procurement,
but also various other departments, to work together and make sure...
we actually obtained the relevant data,
so we could write a good report.
We began in 2023...
with carrying out the double materiality analysis...
and we consciously chose...
not to conduct a questionnaire,
but to actually visit our stakeholders for interviews.
We tried to connect it to what was important to each type of supplier.
So for example, with the window cleaners we really talked about...
safety and health as the main theme for them,
but with the suppliers of the tools and materials,
there was a lot more focus on CO2 data.
Regarding the stakeholders, we started by drawing out...
our supply chain to see who was in our organisation's supply chain,
making them the most important stakeholders to us as Lely.
For us it starts with the suppliers and ends, obviously, with the farmer,
that dairy farmer we're doing all of this for.
During implementation, we had a lot of contact with other businesses.
On the one hand because we're a part of the Capital Equipment Coalition,
there are several large production companies in there,
because that can help you get ahead in knowledge and expertise.
But also with the FME, the Federation of Metal and Electronics.
Their analyses certainly provided us insights.
And finally just a conversation with peers,
so other businesses in the agricultural sector,
sustainability managers, purchasing managers.
We also organised a supplier day...
where we specifically added this topic to the agenda in a session...
to really continue that dialogue.
You'll see that farmers are much less involved with this,
but we're going to very specifically say what...
we need from them to eventually be able to deliver our report.
Something we mainly do is look at other parties on the market,
so not necessarily in our own sector,
but look more at listed companies for example.
Have conversations with them to see what they're running into.
Do they have any tips to give us?
Sharing experiences as much as possible.
What we gained from implementing the whole CSRD...
is the fact that we're paying more attention to that integrated approach.
Now that we can actually match it to the expectations from legislation,
you can tell it increases overall acceptance.
My tip for companies who still have to start with CSRD is...
don't let it get too big.
Keep it small, step by step,
and start with the departments that require the most energy.
The golden tip...
from us...
would be to start with a multidisciplinary team,
because in the end you need everyone in the organisation to really...
obtain the proper data, action plans and policy documents.
Another tip is to involve the accountant on time...
especially with the double materiality analysis,
because that's really your starting point for the whole CSRD,
and if that one's wrong, you're already failing from the start.
So have that checked on time.