Richard Eglon, CMO at Nebula, discusses the findings of the company’s latest report: ESG Unwrapped: Building a Sustainable Channel Community, which calls for collaboration, co-opetition and knowledge sharing as crucial ingredients for ESG success. Richard shares some example of how Nebula is benefitting from this new approach as well as offering some advice as to how the Channel more generally can embrace the advantages of ESG.
[Music] okay so nebula’s latest report and the title is ESG unwrapped building a sustainable Channel Community I think the the sort of headline finding is that it suggests that the status quo is no longer an option it channel players actually who want to unlock full potential of business advantages need to embrace or understand that ESG strategies can deliver so yeah if you can perhaps just expand on that a little bit yeah of course Phil um so so from a nebula perspective we’re we’re very much early on our ESG Journey ourselves so so the whole premise of the ESG unwrapped initiative that we’ve put together was was very much sort of to bring together a lot of our learnings in in in in terms of setting up the journey ourselves from an e ESG sustainability perspective so so obviously we’re we’re a channel Services business so we’re part of that sort of Channel Services value chain if you like so so you know being a very much partner Le industry that we’re in in in the technology Channel what what we found is because there’s no real framework especially in the UK in terms of how to start your ESG journey and how you know what metrics are you going to record uh what value do those metrics bring into your ecosystem of of Partnerships and customer base so so for us we sort of stripped it right back to the very Bare Bones if you like to understand right if if as nebula we’re looking to you we’re sort of if you like we’re we positioned sort of in a in a you in a nice Bungalow today and that Bungalow has got Bungalow type foundations but actually we wanting to build very much a hotel on that same plot and and to do that we want we need to build deeper and stronger foundations for us for us to grow on and to to to expand on so what we felt was we wanted to bring together you know to to share sort of freeo view information if you like and and and interview a number of our sort of Partners in in that whole network of of some people are more advanced on their ESG journey and so some are just starting out and because because the channels made up primarily ofme businesses if you like um many many companies in the channel don’t have a dedicated ESG resource so that that they don’t have a sustainability lead or an ESG evangelist in their business it’s actually done primarily in a job share scenario so there’s a number of people that you know are looking to deliver that that piece of business so so that whole that whole ESG thing was for us to to try and capture our experience in that in that initial report that we’ve released and and but more importantly make that freeo view for for the rest of the channel ecosystem to access and hopefully they might pick up some tips and some useful guidance on how they might get started because we always say yeah the Channel’s only as strong as the weakest link in in that chain so if you know we’ve got to bring and drag everybody on together you know this isn’t a a competition type type framework this this is very much about um I suppose cooperation and collaboration in terms of of helping one another on that Journey so so really that that’s where ESG and WRA sort of was was born and and we’re looking to evolve this as we go from our own experiences but more importantly bringing in experiences of of The Wider Channel and I believe you assembled or you say you talked to a group of sustainability experts in particular right across the technology sector um who all seem to have the the sort of common view or the the call that the the channel does need to um um I don’t know refine or even redefine their approach to to sustainability to you know to basically to deliver um you know a bigger impact so so I suppose does it say what’s going wrong now and also what I suppose you know what what which direction does it need to head in I suppose yeah yeah that’s that’s good question I think from our perspective we we put together this what we’ve called our net Heroes uh section of the report which was very much about um aligning with that sort of um thought leadership and those people who probably a little bit more advanced on their journey and and understanding what you what they’ve learned on the away and some of those mistakes and and and what what should people knew on their journey and look to avoid and that type of thing so but I I think for the first time in over 20 years I’ve been involved with this industry I think what I’m finding from ESG in particular and sustainability as a whole is it’s probably the most collaborative transparent and authentic um partnership way of working that I’ve seen before because generally when we’re talking about technology in the space it’s very guarded and it’s very much of you know the barriers are up if you like and and I think with with the good thing about ESG and sustainability what I’m finding is because everybody’s pretty much on a similar Level Playing Field apart from some of the big companies of course but from anme perspective we we’re all we’re all sort of in in in that sort of same boat if you like so so what what what we’re finding is is as we talk more to to more experiences from people across the channel is people are very open and very um the very accepting of of of of being approached to sort of share those experiences so so yeah our our the net hero section is is is probably been one of the most insightful aspects of that because you know the this report in particular has broken down into um I thought is important because ESG is only as I suppose is only as um only as I suppose powerful as the people driving it it’s very much a people Le initiative in in my opinion so so I think it’s really important that people have something they can relate to from different perspectives and and I think that’s what comes across with the net hero piece and what what’s interesting is people who’ve read the net hero sort of interviews if you like and and and those shared comments there’s there’s more people now want to be involved with you know with the next version of the report and where and that so it’s almost in in a fluid manner the the ESG un wrapped initiative is sort of forming its own path if you like it it’s um so the next one we might talk about will be touching on more the S of ESG more the social so there’s a lot of thing around social value and social impact and and everything else so um so so so it it’s sort of almost creating its own journey ahead of itself if you like from from people getting involved but this this is very much about u a people driven exercise rather than a something that’s focused more around sort of compliance and governance and and and sort of strict Frameworks because because that that only works for a certain subset of of businesses in our industry if we look at things like the sbti you know there’s a lot of smes who who can’t commit to a lot of those aspects but what they can do is align to science-based initiatives so they don’t necessarily have to sign up to them but they can align to them for example so so the the start you know talking the same language and and the start being able to put their own sort of kpis in place to to to show those I suppose that sort of marginal gain I think this is all about little and often I think it’s all about um celebrate those those small successes because each small success that you achieve turns into a you know sort of has a bigger impact in in the broader partner ecosystem and I mean did you bump into any sort of opposition or folks that I mean I can remember conversations not that recently you know couple of years back where PE people in the channel were saying what what’s you know sustainability got to do with us no one no one’s interested hopefully that attitude’s improved but I said did you find any sort of negativity or as you alluded to the fact that everyone’s sort of still kind of keeping their cards very close to their chest and not really wanting to to share and talk about it or or do you think in the main everyone is is sort of understanding it’s a a common goal and opening up this yeah I think that’s a good point I think the I think one aspect of this is sustain when we talk about sustainability it’s very much has been LED in the last few years around the E so it’s been very much around sustainability is all linked to environmental issues right and that’s not the case you know e is one aspect of it and an important aspect obviously from a carbon and decarbonization perspective but what what actually you know in my opinion sustainability is about it’s about just running good business it’s about running a good business on the right ethics it’s about being transparent it’s being about being authentic and actually delivering what you say you’re going to deliver and and also building a business that is sustainable for you know for the people within that business but also it’s supporting a much more impactful uh ecosystem of Partnerships as well so I think what you’re finding now is um I think the there’s a lot of wind was taken out the sales around the E because a lot of people focused on you know the the decarbonization aspects and and partnering with looking to offset you know their carbon impact and and you know what their journey to Net Zero looks like and you know which are all really credible and and things we should be really driving as as part of it but also what you’re doing around the social impact you know what what you’re doing about uh you know the de and I aspects of your business and and the community that you serve um so we we’ve seen a big push around the you know the S now in in terms of what people are doing to to make a real positive impact in their own communities and that’s communities that might be close to where the offices are based of of organizations or it might be in communities of those communities that the Ser for the end client right so so I think that collaboration of the the social impact is is really taking shape as well and you know if if we look at the UK and European market you know we’re very good at the E we we we’re sort of probably the most Innovative and and making the most impact in terms of the E and especially in the UK uh from an environmental perspective and and it’s where can we take that even further as we go forward but then if we look at somewhere like the US market you know E’s not high on their agenda you know e is is very much um lower down the agenda and and and that’s got quite a big political aspect of that as well over in the US but actually where they are advancing uh really well is around the S and so so the S and what they get involved with with with their sort of social impact and their communities they serve you know they’re doing some really good stuff there so and and I think the G our industry’s always been quite good at the G you know if we think of iso Frameworks and we think of Frameworks for public sector and you know that that governance section we we we’ve always been pretty good at so I think we’ve always you know we’ve come from the world of the G and and I think we’re just we’re just trying to balance how we can you put a mechanism in place on how we can keep progressing with the E and the s in the same way we have with the G for many years in my opinion so so yeah I I think it’s um I think we’re in that position where um you there’s a lot of plates to spin especially for businesses where you know and and you need real ambassadors you need people who are sort of Agents of change who are passionate about these different aspects of ESG and you know the G you know people have always had compliance managers and you know and and people leading all that because there was a commercial aspect to having good quality governance in your business so I think what we’re seeing now is you know the S is been driven across all departments within a business it could be coming from from HR it could be coming from marketing it could be coming from sales or you know the customer support team you know the S is really driven across the whole business and and I think the E is is doing an aspect of that as well and I’m just wondering in terms of the the sort of actions from the port as nebula are you setting yourselves up as as wanting to coordinate this sort of collaboration um knowledge sharing Etc um or do you think it’ll happen organically I guess you just to understand um how the the collaboration and stuff will you think will you will you help drive it or or just expect people to sort of naturally understand it and get on with it yeah yeah I I think I think like everything that’s new it always starts with you know you need your key Advocates you know in that market to to to Really I suppose help educate and and help Infuse and help on board sort of a broader community and and and we always reference that you know the channel as been very much a community and and communities are driven by people and communities are driven by um sort of people who are passionate about certain topics and and and and to make change in any Community you you need to have authentic and transparent um results you you you need to be setting goals that are achievable you need to be uh celebrating the success of achieving those goals when you do and those goals don’t have to be what you’re going to do by 2050 you know what you going to do this year what are you going to do in the next quarter and and sort of really break it down so for us at nebula you know when we started the ESG Journey sort of uh last year we very much focused on a great starting point for us after taking a lot of advice and and listening to a lot of other experiences was we’ve aligned ourselves to the UN sustainable development goals so so for us we did a materiality assessment out to our leadership team our team members our sort of delivery partners and our customers and from from the surveys that we we shared with those you know with those communities and the information we got back we we we aligned to three um sort of sustainable development goals so those three are very much aligned to what our business and and the community we serve are really much focused in today so so so th those three are very transparent they’re on our website uh so so we explain you know why we’ve chosen those ones and we’ve also what we found from that process it was very enlightening because actually from the ones that were selected there was ones there that some of us probably wouldn’t have chosen but actually when we broke it down and why those were chosen through through the surveys that we you know we partak in that that was very evident that actually there’s a simple reason that a lot of the things we’re already doing today and a lot of the positive things we’re doing aligned really nicely to a number of the sustainable development goals that we chose so that enabled us then to put really defined targets over the next year or two of things we’re going to commit to so for for example uh one of those is around a a community charity called Sher in woking close to our HQ and and that’s very much about reducing food waste and supporting around 2,000 people a week in the local community by stopping um food waste going to landfill and and that that saves about 40 tons of food waste a month in in terms of redistributing fresh food so that’s fruit veg dairy uh bread you know that type of thing so so that that’s that that means you know we we dedicate one day a month for the nebula team to go and support and to help distribute you know that at the at the charity in wokingham so so that’s a really big thing for our social values and and something we’re really passionate about um but another example is um one of the targets we’ve put in place there is okay well as we’re part of the value chain the channel value chain in terms of delivering a service for resellers msps and and and the likes what can we do actually to help them record their scope three emissions so so one thing we’re looking at and what we’re piloting today is is for us to capture the journey uh information that goes from uh the engineer going from their home to the customer’s site to do an installation or a maintenance job and we we we then need to know sort of what their uh mode of Transport is and and so if we can capture that information we know what the carbon impact is of of of that delivery mechanism so then we make that available to our Channel Partners they can then make it um accessible to their end clients so especially in public sector right that’s that’s a huge thing if they can start really tracking the scope three where most emissions actually sit you know in our Marketplace then if we can start sharing that we can then sort of start saying okay well we know what the carbon impact of delivering that project was right instead of doing offsetting can we do some can we um dedicate some resource to do a carbon removal of that project so it becomes carbon neutral or even carbon positive now that’s where it gets really interesting so so that that’s that’s some of the things where you know you’ve got to deliver on what you promise and and but you then celebrate those sort of successes as and when you do them and I think it’s important that we share that information um across so it gives other people inspiration to actually go and do what’s relevant to their business as well because I don’t think there’s enough I don’t think there’s enough sort of evidence out there what people are actually doing there’s been a bit of offsetting and stuff and planting trees in the past but actually how can you make a real difference to that scope three emission in that value chain which is what the Channel’s about yeah so the so the report I mean one of the objectives is is to for it to act as a bit of a guide for you know businesses in terms of their own ESG strategies and and um presumably it highlights as as you give the examples there the advantages ofg and and I believe also I mean because everyone always thinks these things cost money rather than saes but I I think in the report it does high highl like that you can actually help Drive revenues as opposed to being a cost is that right yeah definitely I mean we we’ve got responsibility as a as an industry right we’ve we’ve you when you look at the you know the statistics out there you know the IT industry I think is now overtaken the airline industry in terms of its impact on the environment so but obviously technology has a huge part to play in the evolution of society and and there’s a lot of positive aspects of of technology that you know we need to embrace but what what we can’t do is is sort of give give with one hand and take even more with the other right and and I think it’s about getting that balance and I think if we can start getting the mindset of of making those sort of incremental changes and if everybody in that value chain does their little bit it equates to something big and so so so you know at nebula with very much of the mindset of you we can’t do this on our own guys we’re bringing some ideas some fresh ideas into the market and hopefully that’ll be well received and but we’re not going to charge you for those things that that’s a value ad and that’s something that we want our business to be aligned to the the old ways of of consuming technology have gone you know we we can’t the you know Precious Minerals you know around where where you know we’re putting things to landfill we’ve talked about that for a number of years now but I think it goes beyond that now I think it goes beyond we need to put the mechanisms in place where people are happy to to have a a laptop you know for for for longer than three years you know that the laptop might be lasting seven years and actually that laptop might be swapped out for another refurbished laptop during that period so so we’ve got this you know it’s almost like when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s you just made do a you know you made do a men right you had this so sustainability isn’t new we just forgot how to be sustainable in in probably in the last 30 years so so I think we need to go back to that way of of of sort of you know when something’s broken it can be mended but where we’ve been in an industry where it’s been very vendored in the past and that whole Channel mechanis ism is on a three-year refresh cycle of bringing new product into that refresh they want to get rid of the old that those days have gone so vendors are now having to Pivot their business to say okay we need to very much align to what the end client demanding what outcomes they’re demanding and I think that’s that’s now those vendors that are sort of leading the way and understanding they need more of a refurbished Market they need they need those sort of product life cycles to be extended the need um you know the need consumption of tech needs to be done with in a more responsible manner where where it where the elements of that techy source needs to be more responsible so so I think you know we very early on the journey and and from the the large vendors are very early on that Journey themselves because the manufacturing aspects of Technologies another ball game alt together right so but that’s where it starts that that’s where the process starts so so we all have our part to play but it’s all relative to the size of business we are and and do do you worry at all that I mean the the sort of The Wider world I think everyone accepts that climate change is happening but there’s quite a significant sort of um whether it’s just the fossil fuel industry or others you know trying to obfuscate or you know pretend it’s maybe not as serious do you worry at all that there push back or do you think everyone well certainly the channel has has you know really understand as committed or do you think there are still a few people dragging their feet thinking well you know depending on which government gets in or whatever you know we might be able to sort of hang on with the the old way of doing things a bit longer or or do you think that that’s no longer the case everyone has worked out they have to go in this new Direction yeah yeah I I think I think look change is on the way you know the you there’s there is no Planet B right it’s you we’re on this planet and we’ve got to look after it the best we can and and and you don’t have to be an ecarrior to to understand that and you for our future Generations so I I think I think it’s much higher on the agenda these days you know from a positive aspect I I also think with ex further legislation coming down the line in the next few years businesses have to do this you know this this isn’t something that’s just going to go away like you know like the millennium bug did into 2000 this is this is literally this is not going away guys you know we we’ve got to get control of this so but and everyone can play their part in that it’s not I’ll I’ll wait for the big guys to do their thing and and and I’ll catch up you know in X number of years I think what businesses should be looking at here is how this can be a real differentiator for your business so by you having a sustainable play by you having an ESG um Prof position around how you can add value into that supply chain in that channel that’s a real differentiator that that’s you know we you’re not differentiating on capability or technical knowhow or you know this is actually a whole new ball game and and opportunity for businesses to really Embrace this and that’s what we’re doing at nebula you know we we’re we’re very passionate behind this so it’s not just a this isn’t just a marketing campaign you know very this is led by the top you know the the leadership team we’re bought into this and we’re committed to this so so for us it’s about us sort of you know our our purpose is all around as Source local Source responsible and Source ethical with our own own ecosystem of of um technical experts around the world that that we sort of um bring together to to build Solutions and deliver projects so you know we want to be in a position where we can say in a few years time everybody who delivered that project or maintained that contract regardless of where they were in the world we’re within a 20 mile radius for example of the customer site so that means from a social impact investment stays within that Community which I think is really important for that Community um to S sort of enhance itself but also it has the carbon impact of obviously less travel that is there it means there’s there’s less um’s less impact on the the planet and the environment so you that’s just two examples of things where we’re still utilizing the same network that we’ve had for a number of years but we just Chang in The Narrative of how we position that because actually that’s that’s the real value to to our supply chain in terms of you know capabil is important but actually what if we can do deliver these aspects for you Mr customer as well yeah and um I guess one other thing to mention about the report I think it also includes a a sort of I think it’s a nine or 10 point guide to how people can start the journey so I I mean I won’t put you on the spot unless you want to to tell me all 10 steps but if you can perhaps just give some sort of flavor is to to for folks who are are you know acutely aware of of what they need to do and just some you know bits of advice as to how to go about it I guess yeah yeah I mean this this being the first report of the ESG and WRA initiative if you like and and as I’ve said before where it goes you know who knows and and it’s while the appetites there we will keep investing our time and resource into sharing this information but that that sort of 10-step guide that that you referenced there Phil that that is very much based around our own experience so you know this is things that we didn’t know about until we started on our journey last year so what we’ve tried to do is make it an easy 10-step guide to getting started with ESG so you know for those that are new to it and especially around the SN space uh there’ll be a lot of things in there that people won’t know today and that hopefully will help them guide them on their journey and that’s not saying this is the the gospel of how to do a ESG it’s just his is a 10-step guide of things that might be useful for your business um people who are a bit further on their Journey they might be some other aspects hopefully in there that they haven’t thought about that they can enhance their Journey or they can accelerate it a bit quicker because as there’s some there’s some sort of information in there that they can they can Embrace and and and integrate into their business so so there’s no real um sort of prescribed formula if you like but what we’ve tried to do in the 10 step Pro processes is share the learnings that that nebula have sort of Taken on board as part of our journey and and very much this is where I think it’s important for us now is is is almost this becomes a bit of a diary of of our own experience and and our own Partners experiences because I think as soon as you make it about like I said before people and you make it about your own experiences people tend to be a lot more engaged than it just being a high level white paper so you know on carbon emissions and how scope 3 is so complex they’re talking about scope 4 now for example what does that mean well I don’t know you know I’m no expert so so I don’t know so so for us it’s it’s as We Gather that information is is what can can we do to help support because you know as a channel Services business it’s our job to share information about latest technology latest service offerings but I think now it’s it’s also our responsibility to share some insights about uh some positive experiences we’ve had around the Y as well yeah um we covered some fascinating ground and and some brilliant insights as to what’s going on both you know at nebula but also you know ESG across the industry so really enjoy chatting Richard thank you very much for your time thank you no thank you Phil been good to chat