Orion Energy
Challenge: Making sustainability metrics friendly and engaging
Lots of people are familiar with their budget or project management, but they’re not so familiar with sustainability metrics.
We spoke with Orion Energy Head of Sustainability and Risk Pip Newland about helping internal teams and external stakeholders to access the information in a relevant and transparent way, using OrbViz Bubbles.
Pip: “It’s a bit scary for people when you go up to them and you want to set a target and ask them to measure, understand and engage with these new metrics (or potentially existing metrics) but in a different way.
“A big part of that hurdle, in terms of building internal maturity, is making that information and those metrics friendly and engaging.
“To unlock the understanding, you need to present the data in a way people can get in there and run their fingers through.”
Solution: Show the data in a way that is relevant to most of the bell curve
“Really what you want is a tool that unlocks a different way of viewing an issue.”
Typically, when you think about how people engage with information, said Pip, it needs to be wrapped up in a story. And to be part of that story, it needs to be relevant to them. That’s why it’s important to not just prepare sustainability reports with C-suite or the board in mind, but those inside the organisation who make decisions that impact sustainability: the ones who do the work.
“Having the people who are actually making the decisions about what vehicles we’re going to drive, and how you’re going to drive them, being able to engage with and understand the impact that they have… is actually really key.
Using OrbViz to quickly move from top-level diagnostics, such as seeing the biggest areas of impact on vehicle fuels, right down to grassroots, minor impacts, allows a user to quickly see and understand changes they can make to drive better outcomes.
Outcome: Transparency is an advantage, not an obligation
Greater transparency around sustainability outcomes – pairing the data with storytelling – yields results.
“We’re facing a challenge where we need to recruit people in the industry to help us with that low-carbon transition,” said Pip.
Increasingly, people are drawn to companies that have sustainable credentials, but aren’t greenwashing. “So, they’re authentic and transparent about what they’re doing,” Pip said. “If you can’t present the information in a way that people can engage with, you can’t have those conversations, or they become a lot harder to have.”