Last Wednesday, in a stylish loft space in Southwark, London, we held an event asking those who came along to put our money where their mouths were. Sincere thanks to everyone who joined us; we aspired to put on a new kind of event – innovative in format and light-touch in approach – and the feedback we’ve received suggests it was enjoyed by all as a taster of what’s to come from Anthesis.

All of our guests received Anthesis “money” of three denominations on arrival. Armed with their banknotes in one hand and a drink in the other, they listened to five-minute pitches from our brave and willing subject matter experts. The six diverse pitches covered hot spotting risk and resilience; engaging your supply chain; circularity; carbon pricing; reporting; and sustainable chemistry – all without a PowerPoint in sight. Everyone then used their money to vote for which of the sustainability issues they felt were most relevant to their organisation. What followed was a careful collection and count of the votes. And though the results were indeed close, I’m pleased to announce that it was our Director Debbie Hitchen’s “are you going around in circles?” pitch which received the most support. Congratulations to Debbie, and thanks to all our other brave pitchers!

We realise we asked our attendees to perform a difficult task: prioritising areas that Anthesis argue are all essential components in enabling businesses to create value for a better world.

And, to put the subject themes of this event into perspective, there is currently a lot going on to drive positive organisational change around the world; the ink is still wet on the Paris Climate Accord; supply chain focus is stronger than ever through the requirements of the Modern Slavery Act 2015; the UN’s updated Development Goals are guiding global ambition with a renewed vigour; and, perhaps most relevantly to our winning pitch, the recently-unveiled EU Circular Economy Package is encouraging businesses to embrace radical new ways of using resources.

And it’s clear that we are serving a dynamic and evolving market. We are engaging a wider range of business functions to deliver our services than ever before. “Sustainability” is no longer down to the efforts of a handful of people within a business. And we genuinely believe that now is the time that sustainability is becoming mainstream, at the core of business success and longevity. We are seeing this movement in our clients across the globe, and we are aligning our services to this. As always, we are here to support you in adapting to the changing demands of the market.

It is an exciting time for sustainability, and for Anthesis too. We sincerely hope you can join us for one of our upcoming events.

As a sneak preview of what’s to come next from Anthesis:

• Our Client Emergen Programme offers our clients the opportunity to spend time with us to accelerate their sustainability progress, and demonstrates our commitment to adding value to our clients. 
• We are launching the Anthesis Vlogging series, which will be short videos on sustainability themes, including those from Wednesday’s event.
• We are planning further events based on what you have told us you want. We’ll be using Debbie’s win to ensure we’re delivering other events, material and content with a key focus on circularity this year, so please watch this space.

Stuart McLachlan is CEO of Anthesis. This blog first appeared on the Anthesis website.