POSITIVE IMPACT THROUGH OUR PROJECTS AND INNOVATIONS

Our biggest contribution to inclusive sustainable development comes from our projects, integrating new ideas, innovations, technology and sustainability. We aim to create impact by connecting products and services key to SDGs for which we have scalable solutions. For our operations, partnerships and client projects, we focus on 9 relevant SDG’s. For seven of those SDG’s we make contributions together with clients and partners in our projects and innovations: SDG 6, SDG 7, SDG 9, SDG 11, SDG 12, SDG 13 and SDG 17.

Click on the SDG visuals below to read more.

SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities SDG 12 - Responsible Production and Consumption SDG 13- Climate Action SDG 17 - Parterships for the Goals

We seek to motivate clients to make sustainable choices, embed Enhancing Society Together and contribute to the SDGs in our daily practice by using our 4 Questions. These guide our conversations with clients and partners to identify where we can add value for society. The SDGs are specifically mentioned as part of our 4 Questions conversations to maintain clear focus on areas where we are committed to make a difference. The questions are:

  1. Does the output meet the requirements of most stakeholders involved?

  2. Does the output serve added value for the client and society as a whole?

  3. Is the result lasting, thus is it future proof?

  4. Can we meet the client’s demand while minimising the use of natural resources and energy?

Figure How we Enhance Society Together in our projects and innovations
How we Enhance Society Together in our projects and innovations

To further embed sustainability into our solutions, especially in design assignments, we add sustainability experts to project teams which ensures it is considered as a design issue from the start of each project. As well as supporting our clients in achieving their sustainability goals, our aim is that sustainability will become an integral and indivisible discipline in our design process.

Scaling positive impact in SDGs through innovation

Innovation has always been important in our business to identify new solutions to meet the needs of our clients more effectively and achieve positive impact. Increasingly we are looking to scale our impact far beyond individual projects and clients through innovations which use automation and digitalisation. At the heart of our innovation activities is our Innovation Hub, accessible to every employee for contributing new innovations or building on existing ideas. They can also visit the Hub to follow the development of innovations, how to get started, find best practices, tools and templates and discover more about the innovation process. As the Hub develops – and it now includes more than 120 innovations – we are exploring synergies to cluster innovations to provide a range of solutions within markets and build on various experiments and learnings. We are doing this with an outside-in perspective, talking to clients and partners to identify commonly-shared problems and desires. Our innovations are linked to our sustainability goals and the 4 Questions. For example, when 20 initiatives from the Hub were presented at an Innovation Breakfast event in 2019, the teams illustrated their ideas under development and included answers to the 4 Questions. The following examples show we can exponentially boost positive impact by using innovative solutions to challenges.

Awards, nominations and rankings

We received many awards for our projects and innovations throughout the years. Our most recent obtained awards and nominations are shared on our website. A selection of the awards, nominations or ranking highlights from 2019 are also shared in this Responsible and Sustainable Business Update 2019.