As businesses across the world focus more intensely on their sustainability agenda, Jonny Combe explains how this impacts leadership, and why credible environmental stewardship must form a key part of business strategy and growth
We’re living in a time where corporate responsibility and transparency are paramount. Stakeholders – whether that’s employees, customers, investors, shareholders or communities – no longer want to hear all the right words; they want action. The majority of CEOs or managing directors presumably understand the importance of sustainability and introducing effective environmentally friendly initiatives, but how many are genuinely incorporating sustainability into their strategy and, indeed, into their business model?
When I joined PayByPhone in November 2018, my priority was to ensure that any growth was driven by a business strategy firmly underpinned by green thinking. Consumers want to support companies actively building a sustainable future. They demand ‘green’ products and services that are ethical and responsible. So, businesses that want to succeed and, crucially, want to continue to thrive, must adapt to this and develop a genuine, thoughtful and authentic business ethos where sustainability and caring for the environment are central to everything they do.
Fighting climate change
There is no need to reiterate the shocking facts about climate change we hear in the news every day. The UK government declared an environment and climate change emergency earlier this year and has committed to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. If we’re going to achieve this, businesses need to play their part, a truly meaningful one, to reduce their carbon footprint and to create a sustainable way to work and live. They not only need to embody green thinking through transforming the way they operate, but they also need to ensure their services or products minimise their impact on the environment.
Only by proactively implementing environmentally-friendly programmes that make a real difference will positive change happen. It can’t be a reaction to a headline-hitting environmental crisis, or an initiative followed purely to make profits. It must be built on real moral integrity, engaging all stakeholders.
Expansion is key to exponential business growth, but we must balance this with prioritising our environmental impact in everything we do, while credibly contributing to a sustainable society. Although most businesses know this and understand what it means, many are failing by promising but not delivering.
A general rule of thumb for business leaders is to practice what you preach, which becomes particularly important when developing a sustainability strategy. At PayByPhone, I set out to get our own house in order first by assessing our own carbon footprint via a rigorous assessment process with an internationally recognised organisation. This ensured that we achieved carbon neutral status and enabled us to really develop a long-term sustainable agenda that would support our growth plans but, more urgently, benefit the environment.
Technology a key driver
Technology is changing how businesses operate on a daily basis, and the potential it offers to help us create a more sustainable future is huge.
Technology lies at the core of PayByPhone’s services and we’ve been able to utilise this in an innovative way to help our clients become more environmentally friendly and to meet their sustainable ambitions.
Our Meters for Trees initiative is the first carbon footprint reduction programme of its kind in the UK and it’s the biggest environmental initiative that I have been involved in. The programme supports our local authority clients in reaching their environmental goals by incentivising them to scrap their parking machines in favour of PayByPhone’s cashless parking payment technology. For councils who sign up to the programme, PayByPhone commits to offset roughly one tonne of carbon dioxide for every ten parking machines that exist in a council’s borough by donating one tree to the council and saving one tonne of carbon dioxide through the Portel-Pará REDD project, a Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) audited project that combats deforestation.
Meters for Trees drives positive and sustainable change because cashless parking payments improve air quality by removing the need for parking enforcement vehicles to collect cash from parking machines, clocking up miles and emitting not only harmful tailpipe gases, but also tyre and brake particles, that affect air quality.
Meters for Trees has been developed as a long-term carbon reduction programme that will continue to reap benefits for public sector organisations.
At a time when the need to combat deforestation in the Amazon rainforest has never been more urgent, our initiative offers a straightforward way that councils across the UK can get involved in to reduce their carbon emissions and play their part in creating a more sustainable future.
It is imperative that blue-chip organisations drive sustainability to the top of their agendas. Sustainability should now be a key part of an organisation’s DNA – a strategy or growth plan that doesn’t have an environmental or a sustainable focus at its core will find itself at a competitive disadvantage and may ultimately fail.
Sustainability success
Kensington & Chelsea was the first UK local authority to sign up to Meters for Trees. Since implementing the programme, Kensington & Chelsea council has already removed 700 machines, which equates to 70 tonnes of carbon being offset in the Portel-Pará REDD project in the Amazon. The removal of the parking machines also eliminates theft and vandalism on parking machines, which was costing the council £120,000 per year. In addition, the borough has cleaner air, too, because there is no need for cash collection and machine maintenance vehicles that were previously driving 23,000 miles every year belching out tail pipe emissions.
People are realising that climate change affects all aspects of everyday life and, together, we must strive to live in a more environmentally friendly manner to create a sustainable future.
Businesses can no longer simply pay lip service to sustainability; they need to do much more than that. Sustainability creates value for stakeholders, who don’t just want strong financial performance, they demand businesses to be socially responsible, ethically minded and environmentally sustainable.
There’s no getting away from it, sustainability is a major challenge. But with success comes responsibility. Businesses must approach sustainability head on and help create tangible, positive changes that combat climate change.
The environment is a mainstay of PayByPhone’s business approach. I realise that all problems can’t be solved overnight, but there are steps that every business can take to reduce their carbon footprint and doing something is certainly better than doing nothing at all. No matter how successful or large PayByPhone becomes, our commitment to a sustainable environment will remain, as will our desire to support our clients on their own environmental journeys.
Jonny Combe is UK CEO of global mobile parking payments company PayByPhone.
PayByPhone, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Financial Services, is one of the fastest growing mobile parking payment companies in the world.
It enables cashless parking payments in 500 cities across 12 countries through smartphone and smartwatch applications as well as its website, helping 29.1 million registered users pay for parking easily and securely without the hassle of waiting in line, carrying change or risking costly fines.
Today, PayByPhone is quickly establishing itself as a market leader in the UK thanks to aggressive growth initiatives, acquisitions and a surge of contract wins.
Its transactions in the UK grew from 23 million to 28.3 million between 2017 and 2018, and employee numbers have doubled over the past year, currently employing 29 people, with the aim to employ 35 by the end of 2019.
For more information about PayByPhone UK, please visit www.paybyphone.co.uk
