Published in February 2024 by Jo Heneker

Choosing who I work with is really important to me, particularly from an ethical perspective.  As a sustainability professional, I want to work with organisations that really care about what they do and how they do it.

I have recently joined the Pelicam practitioner team and to make that decision, I looked at the history of Pelicam and the team to check out their sustainability credentials.

20 years ago, when Peter formed the business, sustainability wasn’t in the mainstream.  However, ‘Lean’ was one of that era’s buzz words, and Pelicam was set up in a lean manner, eliminating waste wherever possible, because it was cost-efficient for clients; it just so happens that eliminating waste is a core pillar of sustainability, so definite parallels can be drawn with Lean business practices (watch this space for a future post on this subject).

In the same way that Lean thinking has evolved over the last 20 years, so has sustainability thinking and so has Pelicam.  The organisation is passionate about becoming more sustainable, not just in the way it assures transformation programmes, but in the way it operates too.

Over the years, Pelicam has developed some brilliant methodologies, that work well for clients.  Now, the team are reviewing and updating them to ensure that the sustainability thread is woven through them. For example, the Programme Success Index, a type of audit tool practitioners use to understand how a programme is operating, is being updated to incorporate sustainability into the questionnaire. This will ensure the team understands the client’s sustainability targets and how the programme can help to deliver them. Further, the team is now actively seeking out the client’s Head of Sustainability to ensure their perspective is part of the Pelicam review. Building this key relationship will help to ensure the programme complements the work the internal sustainability team is doing.

Internally, it’s great to see that Pelicam has recently started working through the B Corp assessment process.  Not only that, but there is also an appetite to ensure everyone associated with the business will have a minimum level of understanding of sustainability, regardless of their expertise.  Everyone recognises that sustainability is everyone’s responsibility, one of my core beliefs.

There is still more work to do, as is the case in all businesses, but it’s great to see Peter and the team getting to grips with core elements of environmental sustainability including a plan to get to net zero in future.  To start of this critical programme of change, an audit of Pelicam’s emissions is planned.  This is a new initiative and the aim is to complete the audit by the end of 2024. 

I’m excited to be working with Pelicam as their Sustainability Lead.  I can see that the team want to incorporate sustainability into the Pelicam way, delivering intelligent and sustainable change, keeping our planet in mind at all times.