"Mum, what are you doing to protect the environment?" is something I imagine my daughter asking me in the near future and I want to be able to say truthfully, from the bottom of my heart, "as much as I can."
But right now, there are times when I'm not. It's normally because of cost or convenience. I am trying to take responsibility to make those factors less of a barrier, but I know my actions alone aren't enough and that sometimes creates feelings of anxiety and fear. But recently I realised that it's not just in my home life that I have agency and power to make positive changes.
The DWF procurement team invited me to help appoint a new supplier. I'll be honest, I wasn't thrilled. It was going to mean giving up a chunky amount of time but of course I accepted to make sure that whichever supplier selected was a good choice from a brand perspective.
What followed was eye opening, and flipped on its head in terms of what I was expecting. I reckon about 90% of the presentations and the discussions were about ESG credentials, how they were working, mechanisms to push through changes in behaviours, initiatives and innovations to offset and reduce impact – I felt lifted by seeing suppliers taking responsibility for their ESG strategies. It was amazing and I was genuinely buzzing afterwards, thinking, "I actually am part of something that is making positive changes bigger than I can on my own".
