Video transcript – Adrian Bettridge – Baringa and B Corporation: a perfect match

Hi. I'm Adrian Bettridge, Baringa's Managing Partner.

When we first met B Corp and understood their values and principles and what they were trying to achieve,
it felt like a perfect match to Baringa's values and our purpose and mission.

So who are we? We're a management consulting firm, that helps our clients across all industries tackle their toughest challenges, and we seek to create positive impact that goes beyond just solving their business challenges.

But it's not just what we do that makes us a B Corp, it's also how we do it. That's what Baringa stands for. Putting people first. Creating impact that lasts.

At Baringa we are proud to be a certified B Corporation, committed to using our business s a force for good and putting the needs of people, community and planet equally alongside our client and business needs.

For Baringa, B Corp is more than just a certification or an award though, it represents who we are as a business and what we stand for. Here are some of the highlights from our colleagues on what makes us a B Corp.

So I remember before I joined, researching Baringa and I kept reading about this unique culture. And it is true, and I did realise that early on, everyone that I've worked with is at a very minimum, just really nice and really, really good at what they do.

What I love about Baringa is that it's a very people oriented organisation.

On the one hand, we strive to provide a very personalised approach in our work with our clients. On the other hand, we care about our employees. We were proud to launch the Baringa community fund in 2017. It's our way of using our consulting skills for good. In the past five years, we've worked with 16 clients on 25 projects.

From household names like Save the Children and the British Red Cross, to small London based charities, like Change Please, and Little Village. The coolest thing that I've done is established the Work Placement Program. We've now embedded that programme across Baringa with a focus on social mobility, supporting young people from care experience or low socio-economic backgrounds with employment opportunities.

A fundamental part of who we are and what we do is focussed on the environmental elements of sustainability.

Like many of our clients, we've set out bold and meaningful goals, and central to that is our push to be net zero by 2030. In practise, this goal translates through every part of our organisation and into decision making on a daily basis.

As we move the dial on reducing our emissions in line with the 1.5 degree scenario, we know we've got our work cut out, especially as a global and a growing business. Underpinning this view of where we're at and where we're headed, are vital measures to keep us on track.

That means we're establishing controls, evolving processes and ensuring we're enabling individuals
and teams to make the right decisions. We operate with reducing consumption at the forefront of our minds and ask ourselves if we really need to purchase that thing, to travel that distance. And for anything that we can't meaningfully reduce, we offset with goal standard projects.

However, we know offsetting isn't the silver bullet in the climate crisis, an absolute reductions in our own
emissions are the priority. We want to create impact that last not just to 2030 but well beyond. The transition to a net zero economy will require a massive step change in the energy markets, and in particular in the ways in which we produce and consume energy.

Over the last five years, we've worked on around 40 power markets globally and supported the development of around 120 gigawatts of renewable capacity.

That's enough to power the entire UK. We are helping natural resources industries with the challenge of returning shareholder value while meeting their climate emissions and ESG commitments. Increasingly, we are asked why Baringa should engage with natural resources and specifically oil and gas clients? burning fossil fuels accounts for two thirds of global emissions. And therefore, if we are serious about the climate, we must enable the world to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

And so in summary, providing Baringa's expertise to accelerate resources companies' low carbon projects is a win for Baringa, a win for those companies, and also a win for the planet as we are directly addressing
through our work, the top source of global emissions and environmental impact.

The financial services industry has a critical role to play in tackling climate change and creating a sustainable future by financing the transition to a low carbon economy financial institutions can be a force for positive change.

As a global leader of the energy transition we're working with financial institutions across the globe on their climate change and sustainability journeys. From banks to asset managers to insurers. We've partnered with financial institutions to support them on a range of challenges, like how to set their climate commitments
or how to make good on these pledges through designing and embedding effective net zero strategies that influence every aspect of business operations.

We've put climate on the agenda at all levels of our clients' organisations. We've delivered climate change
training to the boards of 16 financial institutions, as well as trained several thousands of front office staff.

Beyond this, through our ESG strategy work we're ensuring that firms don't just consider the climate emergency in isolation, but instead take a holistic view that allows them to make a material difference across a range of social issues that need to be addressed.

Addressing climate change is the biggest challenge for our generation. Getting this right will require a holistic approach across the economy. Baringa has been working with the UK government on projects that will help us to achieve net zero by 2050. We have brought together teams with deep energy expertise and delivery capabilities to help set themselves up, to get insight and clarity they need to deliver an economy-wide
net zero strategy ahead of COP26.

Baringa worked across the UK Department of Health and NHS to support their response to the Covid 19 pandemic. This included designing and building the supply chain to support the NHS Covid vaccine rollout, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. The program was a huge success. Public Health England estimates that the entire program saved well over 100,000 lives.

At Baringa, we use business as a force for good: Helping clients to build back better, more sustainable supply chain and procurement functions in a post-Covid world. A fundamental part of who we are and what we do is all about the environmental elements of sustainability.

We've been busy setting huge, ambitious goals, and central to that is a push to be net zero by 2030.
The name of the game for us really is to make sure that our positive impact lasts well beyond 2030. And actually we're super excited to say that now B Corp is part of that story with us

Some of the work we are doing in financial services focuses on the helping financial services institutions to set
and deliver on their climate commitments. Through our work on Net Zero strategy, we're helping clients in the US be a force for good funding the transition to a low carbon economy.