Q&A: Verco’s Andrew Todd on Moving from Plan to Action

When it comes to sustainability, going from plan to action can be easier said than done.

With so many moving parts in companies, sustainability leaders can often feel disoriented or overwhelmed when the time comes to implement decarbonisation programmes.

One company trying to ease the burden is Verco, an energy management and sustainability consultancy, based in the UK.

Verco’s mission is to help as many organisations to achieve their net zero goals as possible, through data-driven analysis, advice and strategy implementation. 

Andrew Todd, Director at Verco, gave a keynote address at Sustainability LIVE: Net Zero at London’s QEII Centre, that addressed the ways businesses can get the ball rolling.

Afterwards, he stopped by to speak with Sustainability Magazine about Verco’s work and how the company is helping deliver net zero for organisations far and wide.

Please introduce yourself, your role and how you first got into sustainability.

I’m a Director of Verco. I look after all of the services we provide to our corporate clients. They're generally companies on a distributed supply chain, so they're making things, moving things, selling things. 

I’ve been working in sustainability for around 18 years and the early part of my career was really looking at industrial energy efficiency and decarbonisation.

More recently, it's been more strategic, working with large companies on some of the bigger questions.

I suppose that hands-on, pragmatic background, combined with the quite theoretical consultancy work is a good mix for someone in sustainability.

I think so. I think the way that you can really get people understanding is to give them confidence. 

Having come from doing on-the-ground calculations, technology assessments, I guess gives a perspective that inspires a bit of confidence when talking to business leaders.

You’ve just come off stage, what did you talk about in your keynote today?

Today, I touched on how to move from your high-level plans to executing a net zero vision.

It’s not a simple kind of task and I think a 25-minute talk was probably a bit brief, but I covered some of the observations and tips that have helped companies hit their targets.

What sorts of companies does Verco work with?

At Verco, we work across lots of sectors. 

My background is in manufacturing and consumer goods, so a lot of the clients I still work with tend to be food and drink or FMCG companies who are generally manufacturing products which are consumed and distributed around the world.

Could you tell us about how advances in technology are affecting the way that Verco explores sustainability?

For us, we've been doing this for about 30 years and there's a lot of knowledge we've built up. 

We use technology and data solutions to help embed that knowledge, to drive the greatest impact possible. That's ultimately what we're trying to do. 

We've been developing our new solution, MyVerco, and that's looking at embedding some of our knowhow into a platform that helps companies make the right decisions.

Do you see data as an essential part of the transition from plan to action, when it comes to net zero?

It's an enabler, isn't it? You need the fundamentals, or it's very hard to make decisions. 

We are getting into the crux of asking businesses to invest considerable sums over a considerable period. 

If we can't have confidence in the data to support our decision making, we aren’t going to be able to sustain the level of ambition that we want.

We’re here alongside our sister event, Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE: Sustainability, today. Do you think supply chain management and sustainability go hand in hand when it comes to net zero?

For the companies I work with, it's probably the biggest challenge they have. 

It's very easy for companies to get focused on their direct operations, but it's still a small part relative to their overall footprint. 

Supply chain impact is still probably the hardest thing to drive within an organisation. 

There might be a lot of willingness, but companies ultimately don't have control, so it requires collaboration. 

We need events like these to show how we can work together and what can be done to make people be able to make reductions in their own companies.

If you had to give one piece of sustainability advice, what would it be?

Don't be afraid to not know the full answer. Make sure you know the direction you're going and make some progress. 

Don't wait until you have every piece of information and have everything ironed out, because you just won't get anywhere. It'll take forever. 

So, make progress, keep reviewing, keep improving and make something happen.

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