LRQA launches ESG initiative based on UN SDGs
Leading supply chain ESG assurance specialist LRQA has launched a sustainability initiative based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals that is designed to help other businesses follow suit.
LRQA consults on, and certifies, the ESG performances of global industries and their supply chains in a broad range of sectors, including manufacturing, apparel, healthcare, and food & drink.
Its new initiative – Our Planet, Our Plan – outlines the company’s internal ESG commitments over the next seven years, using verifiable third-party data to substantiate its sustainability claims. Data is made transparent and accountable by an online dashboard that publicly tracks its performance.
Informed by 1,500 LRQA colleagues across 160 countries the scheme is rooted in the seven commitments aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: governance, community, environment, equity, safety, inclusivity and education. Each has its own performance metrics.
Ian Spaulding, CEO of LRQA, says: “Our Planet, Our Plan is a seven-year action plan that will help shape a better future for the next seven generations and beyond.
Accountable to highest ESG standards -- LRQA
“As a company that drives transparency and transforms sustainability commitments into robust, measurable outcomes for our clients we also hold ourselves accountable to the highest ESG standards.
“We will deliver meaningful action and be as scrupulous with ourselves as we are when supporting clients, by designing their programmes or validating their sustainability commitments.”
Spaulding adds that third-party verification of sustainability data and claims “will continue to grow in importance as more data-empowered legislation frameworks are implemented worldwide”.
He adds: “We will measure, score and externally verify every indicator in our own sustainability strategy, publishing our progress with full honesty and transparency, including when we fall short.”
To accompany the programme, LRQA is launching an eight-episode podcast series to explore each of the seven UN commitments, offering personal and professional insights around each, as well as practical guidance for listeners in addressing, monitoring and verifying sustainability progress.
The first episode explores the power of transparency in business, and features Ben Western, LRQA’s Head of Sustainability.
Sharing data has been long held as key to making progress on ESG initiative in supply chain.
