Our Impact: 2023-24 report goes live!

Each year we publish an Impact Report: this not only fulfils our obligations as a B Corp but is an ideal way for us to share the environmental and social progress we’re making as a business. As part of the publication of this year’s report, our CEO Sam Reeve shares his thoughts on how the Impact Report reflects the work we’ve done over the past year.

It is with great enthusiasm that I present the 2023-24 Impact Report for Resource Futures. In this financial year (April 2023 – March 2024), we not only retained our B Corp certification but also achieved a leading score of 110.6, setting a benchmark in our sector, country, and among companies of our size.

We take immense pride in this recognition which reflects our commitment to our clients, the environment, our employees, and the community across all five areas of the B Corp impact assessment.

Our ambition doesn’t stop here. We have already initiated actions that will further improve our B Impact score, and the creation of our new three-year strategy is aligned with this objective (you can read more about our collaborative approach to developing this new strategic plan in the Governance section of the Report).

Our new three-year strategy will guide and inform the development of the company over the next three years, forming the basis for decisions we take at all levels internally to thrive as a business, to continually innovate and to evolve the services we offer and the way we work.

I would like to draw your attention to some key impacts our technical experts have delivered over the year through our services and our support to our staff and local communities. You will find more details in the subsequent sections of this year’s Impact Report.

• New staff contracts delivered enhanced benefits in areas such as maternity and paternity leave, sick pay and holiday entitlement;
• 30% of staff took the opportunity to give back to the community in the first year of our volunteer scheme;
• We identified our carbon hotspots and set an ambitious, science-led target of reduction in CO2e by 2050;
• Our Community Action Groups (CAG) networks have expanded, involving more people than ever in sustainable activities;
• We informed the design and implementation of ‘product post back’ business models by assessing and reporting on consumer attitudes;
• We supported the roll out of flexible plastics collections through participation research;
• Our data gathering supported the validation of nudge theory as a method for driving down food waste;
• We helped the UK retail sector fully understand the implications of deposit return schemes (DRS);
• We delivered training to help chemical engineers incorporate sustainable action into their work;
• We helped to inform incoming packaging extended producer responsibility (pEPR) regulations by gathering and supplying packaging composition data on a national level;
• Our toolkits enabled eight developing countries to understand the extent of their national plastic waste;
• We analysed which policy interventions could reduce textile waste and drive reuse in this sector;
• We helped local authorities to review and improve their waste collection and treatment optimisation operations.

At the heart of our ambitions for the next three years is our determination to help our clients tackle more and larger problems related to the sustainable use of materials. We remain committed to our vision of creating a sustainable world, and our purpose of supporting organisations, people, and communities to thrive using material resources sustainably. I look forward to reporting on further progress made in next year’s Impact Report.