Accenture’s Vrushali Gaud on Organizational Sustainability Amplifying Your Voice for Sustainability Within a Large Organization
PHOTO CREDIT: VRUSHALI GAUD/ACCENTURE WRITTEN BY: CRISTINA DEPTULA
address the world’s most pressing challenges. Sustainability became a business imperative and key to long term value creation,” Gaud says. These early experiences working in the automotive sector got her thinking about carbon emissions, environmental regulation, climate change and the ways corporations can embrace a more purpose driven agenda to address the world’s biggest challenges, including sustainability. She continued to champion environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, through engaging with multi-stakeholder bodies, corporates, regulators and policy makers that scaled adoption of integrated sustainability reporting and transparency in disclosures across South Asia. Currently a leader in Accenture’s Sustainability Services practice, she helps companies transform towards more sustainable and resilient businesses that create positive value and impact for all stakeholders. WHY SUSTAINABILITY? Gaud believes that sustainability is a priority issue for all companies, as they look to understand future risks, build long term resiliency, drive inclusive growth and thrive in the new socio-economic environment. “We believe every business must be a sustainable business. Infusing sustainability into how companies operate will not be optional – they must embed it into everything they do.
Just as the digital revolution transformed how people live and work, so too will sustainability, driving new value and growth and permeating everything that we do,” she says. Sustainability encompasses a more interconnected view that spans environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, from transitioning to a net-zero economy to protecting human rights to advancing inclusion and diversity. This is because of humanitarian and environmental concerns, in particular, the urgency of addressing climate change. She points out that since the 1980s the rate of increase in global temperatures has more than doubled, increasing our risk of storms, droughts, heat-exacerbated diseases, and other calamities. Also, because businesses and their customers need a healthy and functional world in order to operate. Natural disasters and social unrest disrupt supply chains, shake consumer confidence, and constrain the supply of resources. Moving towards sustainability can bring potential new economic opportunities. Gaud says that Accenture’s research shows 72 percent of global consumers say external factors such as climate change, social movements and others are impacting their lives more than in the past. Ninety percent of a company’s value today resides in intangible assets – and yet the vast majority of business models, investment decisions, strategy is centred purely around
V rushali Gaud, managing director at Accenture, was always blazing a trail for a more inclusive and purpose driven workplace. As an engineer, she was one of the few women to pursue mechanical engineering and work on the automotive shopfloor at Tata Motors, India. Subsequently she moved to the US to pursue a master’s degree and had the opportunity to work at the then newly launched Emissions Solutions business at Cummins Inc. “My experience with Tata Motors shaped my understanding that businesses thrive when the communities in which they operate thrive; and Cummins initiated the journey towards building businesses that
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