Humperdinck Jackman (00:01.324)
What is a readiness assessment? How does it help your business? Where do you start? And how is it that ESG Pro can help you? I’m Humperdinck Jackman, I’m CEO of ESG Pro. I’m joined by Natasha Lee, our managing director. And in the course of the next few minutes, we’d like to introduce you to these concepts. You can download the brochure, you can speak with us, book a meeting. There’s so much more, but let’s give you

a simple explanation as to what a readiness assessment is and how it helps. Natasha, would you like to kick it off?

Natashia Lee (00:38.806)
Absolutely. An ESG readiness assessment is the prerequisite to any of the ESG or carbon reporting frameworks. EcoVardis, B Corp, GRI, PPN 006 or formerly PPN 0621. All of these frameworks require an initial gap analysis. Where is your business today and are you prepared for the reporting you’re about to undertake?

Humperdinck Jackman (01:05.004)
So with carbon reporting, which affects almost every business out there, the gap analysis lets you focus, the readiness assessment and gap analysis lets you focus in on, for instance, how you can go about reducing your carbon footprint. Is that right?

Natashia Lee (01:26.316)
Yes, and also looking at what policies do you have and are you meeting current and future regulatory or legislative requirements for bids and procurement. And it’s within the readiness assessment that you can also start to identify those gaps within, in particular, the governance, your internal governance. So it’s only a one to four hour assessment, but it results in an overview.

of where your business is and what gaps you need to complete for critical purposes, the things that you must be doing. But within our report, we also map out a project plan, what we call the compliance roadmap, so that you can understand where it is you might like to take your business moving forward with your growth strategy in mind.

Humperdinck Jackman (02:16.704)
So like Peter Drucker said, isn’t it? If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it. The readiness assessment is the starting point to define your strategy to make your entire progress through responding to PQQs to gaining a B Corp or Ecovada certification. For example, it’s the starting point. It’s the efficient starting point.

It is often coupled with the supply chain audit as well. So Natasha, you might like to pick up on that.

Natashia Lee (02:44.865)
And it.

Natashia Lee (02:54.357)
Yes, so supply chain auditing is usually quite a burden to suppliers, especially the smaller suppliers. But our approach is that your suppliers receive this readiness assessment package. So every supplier is walking away from an audit process with concrete deliverables that they can use for their own commercial purposes too. They get a certificate that is rated between a pass. Every business will pass this readiness assessment.

We will provide you with the critical policies that might be missing. We will make sure that you have resolved any of the big red flags that would mean you would otherwise fail. And then from there, you might score into a bronze, a silver or a gold if there are aspects to your current operations that are above the maturity threshold. So you might already have carbon reporting or a very solid CSR strategy and policy.

in which case you might be scoring a silver or a gold. But with your suppliers, the difference is they get to have something from the process that helps their business grow as well.

Humperdinck Jackman (04:04.071)
So there’s two things which you’ve brought up there which really interests me, Natasha, and I know they interest every client. It’s first of all that the consultancy is included. The advisory session is part of the readiness assessment. I think that’s very important. But also the fact that the certification, every client is assured of a core certification, which helps them right out of the gates with anybody.

to win new business and that’s what it’s all about.

Natashia Lee (04:38.306)
Yes. And so every client, we say one to four hours to complete that is the assessment itself. And then you get a workshop with an ESG consultant who actually maps out a bespoke project plan for your business. And you receive a report that tells you everything you need to know about ESG as it applies to your business. From there, it’s up to the client or the supplier to decide where they want to go. You know, if they, if they want to progress with any of these other frameworks, but

that initial gap analysis makes all of the difference, especially to the smaller SMEs who are a little bit lost at the moment with all of the acronyms and the mayhem. So being able to know if you’ve got a bid and you’re not convinced you’re going to win, you don’t really want to invest in a huge strategy without having assurance that you’re going to win that project. Well, this readiness assessment lets you claim we have started.

We don’t have any major governance risks in our business. And of course, from there, that project plan, we can write a letter of intent. You put it into your bid that this is what you will do if you win. And that’s how we can support the SMEs to win those opportunities without having to invest unknowingly ahead of a big project. with businesses, especially those in the NHS supply chains, NHS Evergreen,

massive framework is going to be capturing million or more businesses, predominantly SMEs across the UK, and where they are saying you have to have a strategy for carbon, you have to be working towards an ESG rating, this is that starting point that lets you at least evidence that you have begun.

Humperdinck Jackman (06:24.799)
Very good. And I think one of the points to close on is the readiness assessment is hosted on our own platform. There’s no software to purchase. You complete this at your own pace. Like Natasha explained, it’s one to four hours and there’s no use of personal data. So it’s, it’s very, it’s totally GDPR compliant and you don’t need any specialist skills or knowledge to complete this.

It is typically undertaken by a senior manager or company director, possibly with some input from human resources or finance, but it’s that simple. So thank you very much for listening. Like I said, we’re available to explore this topic and many others with you further. Just use the contact form at the bottom of the page on our website. Book a meeting, drop us an email.

have a call and let’s see how we can help you. Thank you from us for listening.

Natashia Lee (07:29.39)
Thank you.