5 examples of doing more with less: UK directors' duties, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Haleon, Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative and SUEZ.
👋🏽 Hi there 😊
68% of UK finance leaders now rate cost reduction as a strong priority, up from 53% just one quarter earlier (Deloitte UK CFO Survey, Q3 2026). For sustainability teams, the message is clear: do more with what we have.
The good news? We are more and more learning where we can make smarter more impactful actions to transform our organisations. These are structural, these are cultural, these are often small shifts in our approaches that can have a lasting impact.
This week’s Friday5, inspired by a theme discussed in the Sodexo Community of Practice, illustrate actions with real results. Cardiff Met saved over £700,000 in a year. SUEZ saved £2 million.
🌿 Make others’ responsibilities clear, so they can act for you (UK directors’ duties)
🌿 Change what you look for, and how you ask (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
🌿 Use the tenders you already run to engage suppliers on carbon (Haleon)
🌿 Find shared goals and fund solutions together (Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative)
🌿 Ask staff what they want, then build it into policy (SUEZ)
Of all the ways to do more with less, the most cost effective and impactful is collaboration. When we share our stories, and the solutions we find, we save time and amplify our influence.
Collaborate with your peers working on the same challenges as you. Apply to join the FuturePlanet community here ⬇
1! Make clear the responsibilities of others. So they can act for you
Under the Companies Act, UK directors must consider and manage financially material climate and nature risks, according to the Directors’ Duties Navigator guide from the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative. Directors can delegate tasks to others if they supervise the work, but not compliance with their duties. To meet their duty of care, directors must stay informed. So a small sustainability team can do more with less by making the risks clear to the directors, not by being in every room. Discover here practical tips to brief your board, such as risk database with clear owners, and minutes showing how duties were met. [Discover more]
2! What to look for, and how we ask for what is needed, makes a difference
Cutting carbon is widely believed to mean larger plant, longer programmes and higher bills, a belief CIOB (Chartered Institute of Building) calls a persistent myth. Cardiff Metropolitan University started instead with how its buildings ran, not with new technology or capital projects. Half-hourly meter data showed around half the university’s energy was used outside core working hours, so it asked “could we halve that half?” It reviewed schedules and controls against real use, and over two years gas use fell 34% and electricity 10%. Savings, including over £700,000 against budget in one year, funded technical studies, physical works and more estates team capacity. CIOB says the lessons transfer directly to commercial estates. [Read more]
3! Use the tenders you already run to engage suppliers on carbon
To cut supply chain emissions, consumer health company Haleon needed a scalable way to influence supplier behaviour, but traditional procurement lacked tools to prioritise low-carbon suppliers, and many suppliers had limited carbon data. So Haleon priced carbon into tenders it already runs, at what it calls “minimal budget impact”, and over 130 suppliers sourced renewable electricity for Haleon. Haleon’s lessons learned include engaging suppliers earlier and giving clear guidance on footprint methods. For organisations with fewer resources, Haleon suggests piloting one higher-emitting category first and using industry averages where supplier data is lacking. [Read more]
4! Identify shared goals and collaborate to fund solutions
A small team cannot fund or run every project alone, but stakeholders who also benefit may bring what it lacks. For example, Edinburgh Community Solar Co-operative raised £1.4 million through a community share offer open first to residents, to put solar on 24 City of Edinburgh Council buildings. For the council, the project meant £554,860 saved in energy costs from its start, according to figures reported to its finance committee. For members, the latest share offer has “a projected annual interest rate of 5%”. For the wider community, surplus income funds local projects, such as LED lighting for a community centre, ponds and bee hotels at allotments, and refurbishing two electric canal boats. [Read more]
5! Engage staff on what they want to see and do, and then embed in policy
SUEZ recycling and recovery in the UK aimed to halve its travel-based emissions from 2019 levels, across nearly 5,800 people at more than 330 sites. People can resist what they had no part in creating, CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) notes, and SUEZ built its sustainability principles from staff suggestions, with reducing travel among the top three. To support its “travel smarter” principle, SUEZ brought in a policy with a meeting impact calculator showing the money and carbon cost of meeting in person. In one year, the policy saved £2 million and 2,000 tonnes of CO2, CIPD reports, though SUEZ said travel stayed low that year “partly due to the pandemic”. [Read more]
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