Client Stories

City Electrical Factors

City Electrical Factors: Scaling impact across a large organisation

Switching entrepreneurial spirit into dynamic strategy

Being the UK’s leading Electrical Wholesaler doesn’t guarantee your competitive advantage. With their industry needing to focus a significant amount of attention around sustainability, CEF spotted a huge opportunity to build on their existing pillars of Nurture Our People, Protect The World and Enhance Communities.

Comms
ESG Strategy

Key Information

Service
ESG Strategy + Comms

Industry
Utilities

Size
4000+ Employees

Challenge

“Seismic have been expert at understanding how the B Corp framework applies to an organisation as large and complex as ours.”

Connor Dalton
Director of ESG & Sustainability at City Electrical Factors

Challenge

A simplified approach to maximise impact

CEF had identified three pillars within their initial sustainability strategy: Nurture Our People, Protect The World and Enhance Communities. The next step was to map out how they were going to put those pillars into action, embedding sustainability within the company culture as a large organisation.

Seismic identified that CEF needed a strategy that could be implemented across the entire business, something digestible for all stakeholders, inspiring them to drive sustainability ahead of their competitors.
With limited resources available to formulate and deliver their sustainability strategy, CEF chose to partner with an external advisor to establish accountability and focus and propel the business forward within the required timeframe.

Approach

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“The initial piece of work was a Gap Analysis of our current strategy, the work that was previously done, and tells us where we need to improve and focus.”

Connor Dalton
Director of ESG & Sustainability at City Electrical Factors

Approach

The B Corp framework as a user-friendly blueprint

With Seismic’s direction, CEF used the B Corp framework to map out their exact performance and score within each of their sustainability pillars.

The project began with an internal materiality process to understand which topics should be prioritised based on their impact. With the results from the assessment, Seismic and CEF worked collaboratively through their sustainability pillars to design an action plan for each area of the business.

Seismic engaged with B Lab to discover the most suitable routes for CEF to gain certification. Currently, CEF are expecting to proceed with the Large Enterprise Approach Certification Pathway due to their size.

Throughout a very collaborative process, Seismic were conscious of translating the B Corp terminology into CEF’s language to help everyone relate to and adopt it into their culture.

Impact

“From a cultural perspective, Seismic being able to digest and demystify any complexity has helped CEF work with urgency and immediate impact, as well ensuring all parties are aligned.”

Connor Dalton
Director of ESG & Sustainability at City Electrical Factors

Impact

High responsibility & accountability through holistic support

As CEF’s sustainability partner, Seismic holds CEF to their ambition to become a sustainability leader in the industry.

With the responsibility of supporting CEF’s Sustainability and Social Value steering group, Seismic coordinates the senior stakeholders, such as the CEO, Heads of Departments and the Head of Sustainability. Encouraging all stakeholders to proactively feed into strategic decisions, enabling CEF to create a transparent and co-created strategic road map.

Seismic has also guided CEF’s creation of their first impact report, supporting them in ongoing marketing plans.

Blazing the B Corp trail for others

CEF are working with others in their value chain (customers and suppliers) to consider their impact and encourage them to progress their sustainability efforts. Understanding the power of community in driving change, CEF has been rapidly increasing awareness in their industry, encouraging others to join the movement. Seismic, in partnership with CEF, hosted supplier workshops, created content for CEF’s commercial team and trained them in effective sustainability communications.

“It’s been critical to consider an element of collaborative partnership with other sustainability consultancies. Seismic’s approach is to remain customer-centric, maintaining a high level of professionalism throughout the relationship. The goal of sustainability is so much greater than the sum of our individual working parts.”

Harry Foreman, Principal Consultant, Seismic