Start date: 30 April 2024
Duration: Continuous support over a 12 month period.
Location: Online
Certificate: ENSO - Environmental & Social Impact Digital Badge
Cost: €600 vat inclusive - Unsubsidised cost - €1,200
Course code: N/A
Programme overview
A recent survey conducted by Dundalk Chamber Skillnet determined that 68% of our member companies do not fully understand the concept of “Sustainability” and 62% do not have “Sustainability” policies in place.
To support our SMEs we have partnered with the award winning ENSO to provide an online platform that helps SME’s demystify Sustainability, create and implement a bespoke Sustainability strategy while tracking and verifying performance.
What’s Involved?
Step 1: Initial Onboarding Call - During this first call the ENSO team will work with you to assess your Sustainability goals and determine the areas you want to focus on. Armed with these insights, you can take away valuable learnings and begin building your strategy.
Step 2: Strategy Refinement and Online Communication - In a follow-up call, our team will guide you in finalising your strategy and equip you with the knowledge and marketing tools to transparently communicate your sustainability activities online.
Step 3: Monthly Check-ins (Optional) - Stay on track with our monthly check-ins! Our sustainability strategist and advisor will provide ongoing support, monitor your progress, and address any questions you may have. While optional, this step ensures your goals continue to move forward. Implementing your strategy is a marathon not a sprint and the platform allows for easy planning, tracking and editing.
● Continuously enhance your knowledge and skills through ongoing education and training on various topics, including emerging legislation, certifications, energy action planning, financial savings and other relevant areas.
● The ENSO team will be available to answer any questions via email or through online calls at any time to make sure you and your team get the most from the platform.
This programme is 80% funded with funding available to support 30 SMEs (less than 250 employees). Participants will have access to the award winning ENSO platform and 1:1 consultancy support for 12 months.
Learning Outcomes
On completion of the programme, participants will:
Create Your Custom Sustainability Strategy with Confidence:
Create a custom sustainability strategy tailored to your business needs, backed by independent verification and tracking of your sustainability activities. Being proactive about sustainability will lead to better relations with investors, suppliers, clients and regulatory bodies as well as long-term sustainable profits.
A Resource Hub for Sustainable Business Practices:
As a member, you gain full access to a wealth of resources, guides, insights newsletters and templates to guide you along the way.
Continuous Learning for Professional Growth:
As an ENSO member, you can continuously enhance your knowledge and skills through ongoing education and training on various topics, including emerging legislation, certifications, energy action planning, financial savings and other relevant areas.
Empowering Businesses to Share Their Sustainability Story:
When the time comes to highlight your sustainability achievements, let ENSO help you spread the word and raise awareness of your positive impact. Our platform offers marketing tools such as bespoke webpages and customised reports to effectively communicate and prove your commitment to sustainability to suppliers, investors, clients and customers.
Who Is This Course For?
This programme is suited to all organisations.
Benefits
Improve Stakeholder Relations:
By developing a clear set of strategic actions and engaging with your stakeholders, your business will identify existing challenges and opportunities to improve. This adds immense value, especially during times of crisis, as it helps build trust, effective & transparent communication, and financial resilience.
Improve Brand Loyalty and Attract New Customers:
Research has shown that companies with a high commitment to the environment, governance procedures and policies, as well as its social impact outperform the market in the medium and long term. Developing a sustainability strategy that covers all of these key areas, allows your business to thrive in a market that is driven by conscious consumer behaviour.
Reduce Operating Costs:
According to research conducted by McKinsey, a sustainability strategy can significantly reduce costs and impact operating profits by up to 60%. By developing and tracking sustainability initiatives, such as energy use, your business can identify areas where operating costs can be reduced, leading to increased profitability.
Comply with Regulations:
Governments worldwide are implementing more environmental regulations and directives. Having a sustainability strategy in place helps your business stay informed, reduce risk, and ensure compliance.
Reduce Risk:
By mapping out your sustainability strategy and defining action points for each objective, you create a roadmap that enables consistent data collection and analytics. Regular assessment of this data helps identify areas of risk within your organisation. Armed with this knowledge, you can take proactive measures to mitigate and minimise those risks.
Win new business:
With new regulations and directives emerging, larger businesses are now required to report on their value chain, meaning they may send your business a request for information and data. By having a structured approach to managing your data, you’ll be better positioned to provide the necessary information to potential partners. Increasingly, both public and private tender requests are awarding additional points to businesses with sustainability and environmental credentials. Having this in place provides businesses with an immediate advantage over competing tender bids.
More info contact: [email protected]
Applications Closing TBC
